


He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

by Castiel_For_King



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, BAMF Sam Winchester, Caring Dean, Destiel - Freeform, Everyone is just trying to do their job, Fallen Castiel, Family, Gentle Dean, Happy Ending, Hospitals, Hurt Castiel, M/M, Misunderstandings, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pining Dean, Police, Protective Dean, Protective Sam, Sam Ships It, Sam flexes his lawyer skills, Slow Burn, Team Free Will, schmoop and porn at the end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:35:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7515365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castiel_For_King/pseuds/Castiel_For_King
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a hunt, Cas and Dean get in to an argument in their motel room and someone calls the police for a 'domestic dispute'.  Everything goes down hill from there and Sam has to come save the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Guns N' Roses' Patience started playing on the radio, Dean pursed his lips and started whistling along with the intro, unable to curb the impulse.  It was just so soothing and catchy, especially with the backdrop of rain pattering against the roof of the Impala. 

He saw Cas shift in the passenger seat and turned his eyes from the road to pause his tune and offer the fallen angel a small smile.  Cas had been spending most of the trip to Seattle staring out the window, his mind a million miles away, judging by the day-dreamy look on his face.  But now Cas had turned from his scrutiny of the passing scenery to stare at Dean and, despite his efforts to smother it, the hunter felt the corners of his lips turning up even more when those blue eyes focused on him.

Cas' eyes were something special, Dean had finally allowed himself to admit - if only in his own head.  Once, when he was younger, one of John's hunts had taken them to the coast and after the werewolf had been slaughtered the man had shown an uncharacteristic kindness and brought Dean and Sam to the beach to swim in the ocean. He grinned at the memory of Sam's panicked expression when the sand under his feet had suddenly dropped away into the vast, fathomless, Pacific and he'd watched his big brother swim out over the gaping maw of the ocean. 

Out there the water was a deeper, darker blue than the water by the shore, gobbling up the sunlight before it even got close to touching the bottom.

Cas' eyes were the exact same color as the water past the drop off and just as easy to drown himself in, if he wasn't careful.

Dean blinked, clearing his throat awkwardly when he realized what the fuck he was actually thinking about.  It was one thing to admit that Castiel had nice eyes, it was another problem all together to start waxing poetic about them. 

Jesus Christ.

Speaking of, the angel's attention had moved to the road ahead and Dean readjusted his grip on the steering wheel, focusing on keeping the car between the lines.  He was the one driving, after all, it would be really embarrassing to have to explain to Sam that he'd gotten into an accident because he couldn't stop thinking about Cas' eyeballs. 

He grimaced.  Sam would never let him live it down. 

The rain was falling harder now, pinging against the windows and roof like weak little bullets, mixing nicely with the soft plucking of the guitar from the stereo. 

It was well into the night - just after midnight the dash clock said - and the Impala's headlights were having an increasingly difficult time cutting through the sheets of rain that were falling in front of them.  He wondered if they should call it a night - they still had another four hours to go before they hit Seattle and the thought of a warm bed was enough to make Dean's eyes droop.

"We should find a place to stop, Dean," Castiel's voice was as low and rumbly as the imminent thunder.  "I don't think you should be driving in this weather when you haven't slept in so long."

"I can drive just fine, thanks," Dean quipped automatically, ignoring the little sigh from Cas.  "Besides the sooner we get there -"

"If you fall asleep at the wheel we might not get there at all, and since you refuse to let me drive the car -"

"We've been over this, Cas -"

"-then the logical solution would be to stop and get some rest."  Cas was already on his phone, thumbs tapping away faster than even Sam's could.  "There's a motel five miles from here," he muttered, swiping the screen and tossing the phone on the seat between them.

One corner of Dean's mouth turned up in a half smile.  Cas had caught on quickly to being human.  Or as close to human as an angel could get, he'd been told.  Some things about him were  _incredibly_  human now; like having wear oven mitts when taken things out of the oven or grudgingly getting Sam to fetch something off the top shelf of the pantry for him.  Other things, though, frequently reminded Dean that even though Cas looked and moved like a human, he was most definitely not one.

The de-powered angel hadn't forgotten a lick of the information he'd gathered over the millions of years he'd existed - which came in handy a lot - and he still had the ability to remember everything he saw - eidetic memory, Sam had called it.  Not to mention the guy was wicked lethal with a knife in his hand.  Actually, he was pretty damn dangerous  _without_ a weapon too.  He was slowly improving his gun work but so far hadn't seemed to need it; give him a blade and whatever was foolish enough to attack him ended up cut to ribbons or missing its head within just a few moments.  And, much to Dean’s chagrin after he’d naively suggested Cas let him teach him how to do hand-to-hand combat as a human, the angel appeared to have retained a fair bit of brute strength as well.

"There it is," Cas declared, pointing somewhere up the road.

Dean had to squint and even then it was a few seconds later before he could make out the hazy neon sign through the downpour.  That was another thing Cas seemed to have retained: freakishly good eyesight.

The Impala rumbled to a stop and Dean told Cas to wait while he paid for a room, dashing from the car and into the dingy lobby, suppressing a squeal when icy cold raindrops pelted him, soaking through his hair and dripping down the back of his neck like tiny ice cubes.

A bell hanging on the door jingled sharp and loud when he all but crashed through the entrance, shaking his head to get the worst of the water out of his hair.

"Evening!"  called the guy behind the counter.  "Or morning, I guess it is now."  The man chuckled, his cheeky grin hidden under an impressive mustash and beard.  "What can I do for ya, mister?"

Dean offered him a polite smile, taking in the overalls and red cheeks and beer gut.  The guy looked like freaking Santa Clause. 

"Just a room for the night.  Two singles."

"You got it!" 

Dean handed over a wad of cash and took two room keys in exchange, throwing a thank you over his shoulder as he pushed back through the door and ran back to the car.

"We're in 17!"  he yelled to Cas over the rain.

By the time the two of them had gotten the bags from the trunk and stumbled into the room, they were drenched.  Dean peeled off his leather jacket, thankful it had at least kept most of his torso dry, and glanced over at Cas.

He did a double take when his eyes snagged on the sight of Cas' white - and now  _translucent_  - t-shirt clinging to his well defined back muscles.  Cas was bent over his duffle bag, pulling out dry clothes, and the small movements of digging through the bag and setting his clothes on the bed were enough to shift the ropey muscles under his tanned skin.

Dean's eyes traveled down, down, down to where the shirt was plastered against the small of Castiel's back, hugging the dip in his spine and accentuating the two ridges of muscle that lead down under the hem of his jeans.

"Do you want the shower first?"  Castiel asked him without turning. 

"Uh..."  Dean wondered what was worse: being in the shower and thinking about how well that wet shirt was clinging to Cas' skin or being out here and thinking about Cas in the shower with  _nothing_ on his skin.

His hesitation drew the angel's attention and Cas looked over his shoulder, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown.

"Uh, you can go first," Dean muttered, looking away when Cas' tongue slid out to catch a drop of rain water caught in the bow of his lips.

He kept his eyes averted until he heard the bathroom door close and the shower start up and then let out a steady breath, rolling his shoulders. 

This was fine.  He could handle this.  It wasn't anything but his libido appreciating a fine male form.  That's all.  Granted, it wasn't often that a guy caught Dean's eye, not as well as Cas did, but it certainly wasn't the first time he'd noticed another man.

He pulled a map out of his bag, sitting down at the small table.  He didn't need to look at it to know the exact route they would take tomorrow, but he needed a distraction, his thoughts about Cas were getting out of hand and the last thing the angel needed right now - after everything he'd been through - was to find out his best friend was lusting after him.  For a moment he allowed himself to wonder if angels - if  _Cas_ \- even felt that way.  He'd never shown interest in anyone, man or woman, as far as Dean knew.  Maybe he just...didn't look at people like that.  Social interaction seemed to confuse the poor guy at the best of times and Dean could only imagine the confusion - and possibly fear - Cas would feel if he found out what Dean was thinking about whenever he looked at him.

His gut twisted, remembering the wide-eyed, fucking  _terrified_ expression Cas had had that one time Dean had taken him to a brothel.  At the time Dean remembered thinking it was funny, but now it made him sick to think he'd almost forced Cas to do something he clearly hadn't been comfortable doing.  God, what the hell was wrong with him?!

No, he couldn't let this get any more out of hand.  It was a crush - just a crush is all - and Dean could handle it.  Cas needed to be able to trust him; it had been hard enough to get the angel talking after he'd first come to the bunker, half starving and nearly human.  It had taken Sam and Dean two weeks to catch on that Cas was hardly eating, not because he was sick but because he just hadn't known what it meant when his stomach growled at him.

The door to the bathroom suddenly opened and Cas walked out in a billowing cloud of steam, golden skin gleaming and slick, wet hair sticking up every which way and nothing but a towel slung low on his hips.

Dean swallowed. 

 _'Look away now_ ,' he told himself as his eyes traced a drop of water that was sliding between Cas' shoulder blades and down, down, down to the dip in his back.  

 _'Look.  Away.  Now_.' 

He blinked, his head twitching to the side, but froze again when Cas suddenly stretched his arms over his head and groaned, previously soft muscle all down his back rippled under his skin and then Cas was stretching his arms out in front of him, bowing his spine and making his ribs pop.  He inhaled deeply, rib cage expanding and then contracting when he sighed out a breath.

"I fear I may never get used to travelling such long distances in the car," Cas groaned, reaching up to dig his long fingers into the meaty flesh between his neck and shoulder.

Dean swallowed again, his mouth dry.  "I'm gonna..."  he gestured towards the bathroom, nearly tripping over his own feet when Cas looked over his shoulder, blue eyes piercing against the flush in his dark skin from the hot shower.  "...ok.."

When he'd escaped to the safety of the tiny bathroom, Dean leaned against the door and took a few deep breaths.  Maybe if he ignored it, he could just pretend he didn't have a hard on.  He looked down at his traitorous dick.  

"I'm so screwed."

* * *

 

 

The next morning, Dean was the first to wake.  Which was unsurprising, given that one of Cas' favorite human activities was sleeping.  Cas was always the last one to get up in the morning, shuffling into the bunker's kitchen with his eyes open only enough to locate the coffee pot; although he also was always the last one to go to sleep at night.

Dean couldn't help but grin when he looked over and saw Cas sprawled on his stomach, his head burrowed under the pillows, one arm hanging over the edge of the mattress and the blankets bunched up and tangled around his legs.  He could just make out the steady rise and fall of his back as he breathed deep and even.

Dean swung his legs over the edge of his bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and then squinting at the blazing sliver of morning sunshine cutting between the curtains across the room.  

It was the sound of the ancient percolator rumbling from the kitchenette that finally got Cas stirring and Dean looked over as he pulled up his jeans, the sight of Cas emerging from under the pillows like a curious but sleepy groundhog never failed to make him laugh.

"Mornin' sunshine," he quipped cheerily, walking over to stand beside Cas' sprawled form.

Cas' head fell back onto the pillow and he snarled something into it, his eyes already closed again. 

"What was that?"  Dean asked, he leaned down and turned his ear towards where Cas had his face buried in the pillow.

The angel grumbled again, making no effort to sound coherent, and Dean straightened.  

" _What_?"

Cas abruptly rose up, resting on his elbows and leveling a glare at the hunter that would have been more effective if it didn't come with a side of ridiculous bedhead.  "I said,  _is_ - _that_ - _coffee_."  He over-enunciated every word petulantly, tongue flicking off each 't' sharply.

"Sure is."  Dean clapped him on the shoulder, realizing only too late that Cas wasn't wearing a shirt and  _man_ did the guy run hot.  "Get up, I wanna be on the road in ten minutes."

Exactly twelve minutes later the impala was roaring down the highway.

An hour into the drive Cas dug his phone out of his pocket to call Sam.  

"How are you feeling?" he asked Sam at once.

Dean refrained from smiling.  Cas hadn't even wanted to leave Sam at the bunker in the first place and it had only been his slightly greater concern for Dean's welfare should he go on the hunt alone that finally made him leave Sam's feverish side.  

"Are you sure you should be doing that given - yes, I understand, however -" Cas sighed and it was a long, suffering sound, his head falling back against the seat while he stared at the roof of the car.  "Fine," he said mildly, shrugging one shoulder, "But if you make yourself more sick -"

Cas cut off abruptly and Dean looked over in time to see one of his deepest scowls yet before the angel thrust the phone at him.  "He wants to talk to you.  He's being  _difficult_."

"Hey, Sam."  He grinned.

His brother huffed a sigh into the phone.  "OK, so I was looking into this thing in Seattle a little more," he suddenly paused for a coughing fit.  It lasted a few seconds and Dean winced, Sam's throat was likely raw as hell.  

"Don't tell Cas that happened," Sam gasped once it was over.

He tried to look over as surreptitiously as possible but Cas spotted him, already glaring at the phone in Dean's hand with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Yeah, I think...I think he might have heard it."  

"Oh man!"  Sam whined.  "He's so...overprotective," Sam finished half-heartedly and if Dean wasn't hearing things, he'd bet his brother had a fond smile on his lips.  "Anyway...about this case...it's definitely vampires but I think it might be a nest and I think there might be a lot of them."

Dean frowned, "How many?"

"It's hard to say."

"Well is it more than five? Ten? Fifty?  Give me a ballpark," Dean said.  There were no other hunters in Seattle, at least none that he knew about, and if this was a big nest, he wasn't about to go in with just him and Cas.  

"Definitely less than a ballpark."  

  
"Not funny, Sam."

"I don't know what to tell you, Dean.  It's probably more than five and less than fifty."  Sam sounded frustrated now and Dean could easily picture him running a hand through his hair.  "I should come out and meet you guys."

As if on cue, he went into another coughing fit and Dean waited until it had passed before he said.  "Ok, yeah, that sounds great, Sam.  Make sure you bring some Neo Citron and your respirator."  

"Fuck you, Dean."

"Alright look, when we get there we'll scope the place out and if we think it's more than we can handle on our own we'll hang out in town for a few days and you can catch up.  Sound good?"  It didn't sound very good to him, surely the nest wasn't  _that_ big and the thought of just sitting in a motel room doing nothing while there were monsters that needed slaying had his skin itching unpleasantly.  

Although...his gaze flicked sideways, taking in Cas' profile.  Would it really be  _so_ bad to have to spend a few days in Seattle while Sam caught up to them?  Cas liked coffee and wasn't Seattle supposed to have like, really good coffee or something?

"Dean?"

"Uh, yeah, I'm listening what?"

There was a beat of silence and then Dean could actually  _hear_  the shit-eating grin in Sam's voice.  "What'cha thinkin' 'bout?"  he sing-songed.

" _Shut it_ , Sam."  

Dean wasn't stupid and he knew Sam wasn't either and given how much time the two of them spent around one another it was no surprise that Sam had started  _catching on_.  Dean hid it well enough most of the time - though that was becoming a full time job.  But there were times when he just couldn't help it.  Cas would walk into the room and Dean was already smiling before he even realized it, or he'd catch himself staring at the angel like a creep...but only after Sam had already caught him staring too.

"You know, maybe you should just hang tight in Seattle for a few days anyway and I'll head up there.  I'll be good as new by then," Sam was saying.  "They have good coffee in Seattle, you know."

"Goodbye, Sam," Dean snapped, jabbing the end call button with his thumb and cutting of Sam's congested laughter.

"He thinks it's a nest," Cas summarized nicely.  "What do you think we should do?"

Dean sighed, knowing Cas had likely already thought of a hundred different strategies on how best to approach the situation.  "Get there, find out where they're squatting, scope it out and then go from there.  If there's a ton of them we might actually  _have_ to wait for Sam to come back us up."

Cas pursed his lips but nodded as if he'd come to the same conclusion and wasn't happy about it.  

"If it comes to that, Sam will be fine, Cas," Dean reassured, reaching out to give him a pat on the shoulder.  "He's a big boy, a little cold isn't going to kill him."

"His fever was  _a hundred and two degrees_ when we left," Cas firmly reminded him.  

"Yeah but he said it's down now.  In a few days he'll be right as rain.  Stop worrying so much, man."

Cas shifted in his seat, one hand coming up to move over his mouth, fingertips dragging over his lips in a way Dean had come to realize was a nervous tick.  

"I hate not being able to heal him," Ca muttered against the curl of his fingers.  

They'd been over this before, but it still made Dean's stomach drop whenever Cas lamented the loss of his healing powers.  

"Cas..." he trailed off.  There was nothing he could say now that he hadn't already said before.  He hesitated a moment before reaching out and letting his hand settle on the angel's thigh, squeezing lightly in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.  "Cas...Sam will be  _fine_.  People get sick sometimes.  It's nothing, ok?  You gotta stop thinking about what you can't do any more and start realizing that you help just by being here.  Sam knows you care about him, even if he acts like your mother-henning him is annoying he secretly loves it."  He kept his eyes on the road but let his thumb stroke back and forth over the firm muscle under his hand.  "You might not be able to just blast away Sam's cough, but knowing how much you care about us...that helps in a different way."

Cas was silent and Dean almost moved to pull his hand away but then felt Cas' fingers skittering over his knuckles and he froze, scared to move, as if Cas was a skittish animal that might run away if he moved too suddenly.  

Cas' hand settled over his, his touch light as a feather and so warm.  Though, confusingly, Dean felt goosebumps erupting up his arm.  

It was obvious that Cas' touch was hesitant, as if he wasn't sure he was allowed to do what he was doing, and Dean felt his heart pound against his chest, suddenly overwhelmed with affection for the man sitting beside him.  Cas had caught on quickly to a lot of things - using Google, using his phone, even cooking basic meals - but when it came to things like touching or asking for help or speaking up when something was bothering him...Cas still struggled.  

At first Dean had thought that maybe it had something to do with the fact that he'd never had to worry about asking for help as an angel.  If something was bothering him, he could just switch it off - to a certain extent.  He'd never had to ask someone how to make food or be taught how to take care of a paper cut.  But now, Dean was starting to wonder if it had nothing to do with that at all.  Perhaps Cas just had a hard time understanding the emotional side of being human, and things like comforting touches just...escaped him.  There were people that had been human all their lives that struggled with things like that.  Maybe Cas was just one of those people.

It was a good thing for all of them that Sam was around to help prod Cas in to speaking up, because the only other person around was Dean.  And if he was being honest with himself, he wasn't exactly in tune with his emotions or comfortable expressing them.

But he was learning to.  For Cas.

Dean pulled his hand out from under Cas', shoving aside the jolt in his gut when Cas flinched away like he'd done something wrong, because he was going to make it better.  He immediately took Cas’ hand again, his finger's curling around Cas' palm firmly to make sure he understood it was alright.  For several long seconds Cas' hand was lax under his but Dean paid it no mind, keeping his eyes on the road and his grip steady, and his patience was rewarded with Cas' fingers closing around his hand, the movement hesitant and shy.

It was like a balloon was suddenly swelling in Dean's chest and he couldn't help the smile that was creeping across his face.  Sometimes Cas was just so god damn adorable that it made his chest hurt.

Dean turned his head to glance at him but found that those ocean blue eyes were already fixed on his face and his smile widened reassuringly.  Cas' expression wasn't closed off but it was cautious; wary, like he was scared of something and it made the balloon swelling in Dean's chest deflate a little.  Did Cas think Dean was going to wrench his hand back? 

He squeezed a little tighter, turning his eyes back to the road.

Did Cas not trust him?  Though looking back on it Dean supposed he had plenty of reasons not to.  Most recent being the whole disaster with Metatron stealing Cas' grace and Dean kicking him out of the bunker.

He clenched his teeth, remembering only a month ago when he had reached up to adjust the collar of Cas' shirt, his fingers barely grazing his throat, and Cas had flinched away from him.  For a split second, raw fear had flashed through his blue eyes and Dean had pulled away, feeling nauseous and angry.  Cas had come to them - to  _him_ - in the bunker after his grace had been ripped from him.  He'd been hungry and scared and exhausted and Dean had kicked him out.

He supposed it was no wonder why Cas seemed so cautious about accepting comfort from him.  It made his stomach turn with guilt.  

As miserable as he was feeling, Dean's stomach was a welcome distraction when it rumbled loudly.  At the very least it managed to draw a huff of laughter from Cas before the angel pulled his hand away.  

"You hungry?"  Dean asked, trying not to think about how much he wanted to reach across the space between them and grab Cas' hand again.  Or his thigh or maybe wrap his arm around those broad shoulders and pull him close so that their sides were pressed together.

"No.  I do not feel like eating."  

"Like you feel sick?  When was the last time you ate?"  Dean thought back over the two and a half days of driving they'd just done.  They'd stopped for lunch the day before but... "You didn't eat anything at the diner yesterday," he recalled with a frown.  

"I wasn't hungry then either."  Cas lifted one shoulder in an unconcerned shrug.

"Cas, how many times do I have to tell you?  You have to eat  _every day_!"  He punctuated the last two words by smacking his hand against the steering wheel, as if that might drive the concept of eating  _every day_  into Cas’ head once and for all.

"Why would I eat if I'm not hungry?"  Cas sounded genuinely confused.

" _Because_ Cas, just because your stomach doesn't hurt doesn't mean your body doesn't need energy and if you go a long time without eating you might stop feeling hungry at all.  Where's the closest diner, look it up on your phone -  _do it_ , Cas," Dean ordered firmly when he looked over just in time to see Cas roll his eyes dramatically.

"Fine, fine..."

They were several hours out from the motel now and well into the middle of nowhere so they were nearly to the edge of the Seattle city limits when they next came to a quaint little restaurant sitting on the side of the highway.  It was a busy spot with semi trucks parked on the edges of the road and a lot full of cars and a few motorcycles, but Dean parked the Impala over by the trees and he and Cas walked across the gravel lot, the sun just starting to cut through the clouds from last night's storm.

"Man, it's packed in here," Dean observed when they pushed through the door and immediately had to move out of the way of a large, bearded trucker.

He felt Cas press close to his back, on hand darting out to his hip when someone else pushed past them.  The angel didn't do too well in crowds since becoming human either and Cas' hand grabbed a handful of his leather jacket.  Dean repressed a smile when a waitress waved them over to a booth against the back wall. He turned and grabbed Cas' wrist, taking in how his wide blue eyes darted around the bustling diner, and ushered him into the booth with a hand on his shoulder before sitting down right beside him, effectively making himself a barrier between Cas and the rest of the people in the room.

It seemed to do the trick and Dean was relieved to feel Cas relax a little beside him.

"You ok?"  he asked quietly, opening the menu between them.  Cas nodded but said nothing, his gaze falling to the list of choices in Dean's hand.  "What do you want?"

Cas' lip rolled between his teeth, quickly scanning the options.  

Eventually they both decided on omelettes and Dean got a glass of whole fat milk, which he made Cas drink for the calories alone.  The food came surprisingly fast, given how busy it was, and half an hour later they were on the road again, the sun high in the sky and beaming in through the windows, making the car feel like a sauna.  

Cas groaned with a hand over his stomach and rolled his window all the way down.  

"That's what you get for not eating for two days, Cas," Dean said, rolling his own window down a crack.  

"It's so uncomfortable..." Cas moaned, "I'm so full."

A flush of heat punched into Dean's face and he gripped the steering wheel hard at the influx of sudden - and totally  _inappropriate_ \- images that flooded his brain.  He shoved them aside, buried them in his head, deep, deep down where they belonged, feeling like a total jerk.  Here Cas was saying he was uncomfortable and all Dean could think about was how he wouldn't mind showing Cas that feeling  _full_ could actually be pretty great.

The angel was sprawled across his side of the bench seat, one arm hanging out the open window and the other draped across his stomach.  He was wearing a pair of aviators but Dean could still read the unhappy look on his face and he cleared his throat awkwardly, still trying to dispel a few inappropriate thoughts that had cropped up when he noticed how well Cas' sunglasses brought attention to the sharpness of his jaw line.

"Just make sure you eat a couple times a day like we keep telling you and you won't feel so uncomfortable every time you eat," he promised.

Cas grunted non-committedly as they sped past the sign welcoming them to Seattle.

After that, talk turned to what their plan of action was.  They found a motel easily enough, near the city centre, and got out their maps and newspapers and started to work on trying to narrow down where the nest might be.  It was late into the evening when Dean looked up from his laptop, his eyes blurring with fatigue.  Cas was sitting on the floor with his back to the bed and a totally checked out expression as he stared down at the scattering of news paper clippings littering the carpet around him.

Sensing the weight of the hunter's gaze, Cas blinked and looked up, his blue eyes unfocused.  "I want to stop doing this now," he stated simply.

Dean grinned and shook his head.  "Yeah, me too.  Dinner?"

"Should we go to the cemetery first, do you think?" Cas asked him.

"We're  _eating_ first, Cas," Dean told him firmly. He tried to keep his expression as stern as he could, but his face slackened when Cas frowned and rubbed a hand over his flat stomach.

"I'm still full, Dean. I don't want to eat right now." He looked incredibly uncomfortable with the idea and actually a little sick.

Dean felt torn. He knew that Cas wasn't eating enough but they'd stopped at the diner hours ago. Was it normal for fallen angels to not need to eat as much as humans did? There wasn't exactly a rule book, but Cas seemed to have retained some of his other super-human abilities so maybe he was worrying for nothing.

"Alright fine," he grudgingly conceded and Cas looked immediately relieved. "But when we get back to the bunker we need to have a serious talk about your eating habits - and if you put up any more of a stink about it I'm going to sick Sam and his salads on you, got it?"

Cas threw him a strange look but nodded, seemingly unwilling to bait the hunter's ire now that he'd narrowly escaped having to eat another meal.

"Alright, fine.  We'll go to the cemetery.  Let's go now though, before it gets dark." 

Just as Dean picked up his phone it rang in his hand and Sam's name popped up on the screen.  "What's up, Sam?"  he answered.

"You guys watching the news?"  Sam asked him, sounding excited.

Dean waved his hand to get Cas' attention, "Turn on the news."

Cas spent a few seconds flipping through the channels before scrolling headlines caught their attention and a woman in a suit spoke gravely through the speakers.

" _Two more bodies have been found in a case local authorities are calling 'baffling and horrific'.  Brian and Jane Anderson were reported missing five days ago by their teenage daughter and their bodies were found less than one hour ago inside Lake View Cemetary..."_

Cas grabbed his phone.  "That's on the other side of the bridge."

"Sam are you telling me you think a bunch of Vampires nested in the biggest cemetery in Seattle?  This ain't a Dracula film, dude."

"Well they might be but I think it's more likely they're just dumping the bodies there to fuck with police and freak out the public."

"How are you even watching the news from Seattle?"  Dean asked.

"Because the internet is a thing and another missing persons report was just filed this morning," Sam continued before Dean could come up with a smart ass retort, sounding distracted.  "She lives close to that cemetery.  I'd be willing to bet their nest is somewhere close by."

"Alright, thanks for the tip, Sam, we'll check in when we find out more.  Send me the details of that missing persons report."  Dean hung up and looked to Cas.  "Let's roll.  By the time we get there it should be dark and hopefully the cops'll be gone."

The drive to the inner city was distractingly wonderful in contrast to the grim reason they were there to see it.  The sun was starting to set, casting sharp shadows and silhouetting the tall buildings with golden, pink sunlight.  They'd rolled the windows down to try and stir a breeze in the oppressive heat but even still Cas was sprawled on the passenger side again, one arm hanging out the window, his thighs spread with one knee resting against the door and his other arm stretched out across the back of the bench seat - Dean knew Cas' hand was sitting behind his right shoulder and its ghostly presence tickled over his nerve endings.

By the time they found the graveyard, on the southern edge of the city, the sun was below the city scape behind them, casting long, reaching shadows, making the air hazy and golden and painting everything in soft tones of gold and pink.

When Castiel looked up at Dean, leaning heavily on a weathered grave stone, the colors of the setting sun made his skin look like painted bronze and his blue eyes were dark and bright, glittering like gemstones.

For a moment Dean forgot what they were supposed to be doing there, his gaze lingering on the sight of the fallen angel, and Castiel stared back at him calmly, as always.

"So, uh...let's just poke around a bit, see if we can't find something useful to tell us where these vamps might be nesting," he managed to say eventually.

Cas' eyebrow twitched upward and one corner of his mouth followed it.  "Yes, we already discussed this on the way over."

"Yeah, but I was just...reiterating."

Castiel was dangerously close to smirking so Dean brushed past him with a scowl and they started combing the area.

The graveyard was huge, they found out, and they stumbled upon the crime scene from that morning half an hour later.  The area had already been cleaned up and nothing but a red stain on the grass and a piece of caution tape fluttering in the breeze was left.  It told them nothing, and after another twenty minutes of canvassing the cemetery, they gave it up as useless and returned to the car.

Night had fallen now and the two of them sat in the darkness, discouraged, trying to figure out what their next move should be. 

"Maybe we should call Sam," Dean suggested.

"Sam would have called us if he had any new information."

With a groan, Dean let his head fall back against the seat.  "So we'll just sit here then and hope one of those nasty blood suckers drops by.  Just how I wanted to spend my night."

"Only babies whine, Dean," Castiel drawled beside him.

Dean's head rolled on the seat and he stared incredulously at the angel.

"Alright look, you sassy little shit, quit pickin' up Sam's bad habits.  One sarcastic jerk in the family is enough, I don't need another one."

Castiel's lips twitched like he was trying hard not to smile and Dean felt something light and warm swell in his chest.  He'd made it his life's mission, since Cas had moved in to the bunker a few months ago, to make the angel laugh out loud.  So far, he hadn't been able to pinpoint Cas' type of humour, but he was getting closer.  He'd come to learn that half of what came out of Cas' mouth was sarcasm - had been even when he was an angel - but the delivery was always so deadpan and underhanded that a lot of the time it flew over peoples' heads.  Dean was starting to think that dry humour would probably make Cas laugh.  Maybe some older British comedies like Black Adder or Fawlty Towers.  He vowed to stop at a Wal-Mart on the way home to try and find them.

He was rattled out of his thoughts when Cas suddenly leaned forward in his seat, tensing. 

"There, look."  Cas was pointing out the windshield.

Dean followed his line of sight and movement caught his eye.  In the moonlight between the shadows cast by the tall grave stones, there was a figure walking with slow, jerky movements.  Like he was dragging a body or trying to subdue a struggling victim. 

"Got the dead man's blood?"  Dean asked, reaching to the back seat and grabbing his machete and holy water.

Castiel nodded, pulling a hunting knife from under his seat; the blade was a foot and a half long and the end of it was serrated.

They left the car and crept between the shadows, closing in on their target and realizing it was a young man no older than twenty, dragging a woman that only looked half conscious.

"Hey!"  Dean suddenly hollered.

The bumbling man came to a stop and looked over the top of the woman's head, his eyes wide and startled, until he saw the glint of steel in the hunters' hands and his gaze turned angry.  He tossed the woman to the ground like she was nothing, snarling at them.  The moonlight lit up one side of the vampire's face, fangs long, sharp and glistening white.

"Who are you, Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"  the vamp sneered.

With a smirk, Dean brandished his machete.  "Oh she 'aint got nothin' on me, brother."

The vampire launched himself at Dean, but Cas moved suddenly - merely stepped forward and stretched out his arm, catching the vamp at the neck and sending him to the ground.  Then he stepped back and looked to Dean expectantly. 

Cas always let Dean do the talking.  The angel had once told him that he had no interest and no patience for coaxing information from stubborn monsters and preferred to leave it to the brothers and await orders to either kill or fight.  Dean sometimes wondered if that was just an ingrained instinct that angels couldn't shake.  Cas was a soldier, had been for his entire existence.  Sure he could win a staring contest with a stone - if he _had_  to - but he seemed to much prefer action over words.

The vampire was an asshole but it only took Cas waving around the syringe of dead man's blood to get him talking and he spilled his guts, telling them where the nest was just a few blocks away.

Dean hadn't even finished giving Cas a nod before he struck like a viper, cleaving the vamp's head from his shoulders.

Sometimes Castiel was truly terrifying and Dean would be scared of him if he didn't know him so well.  Cas was ruthless when it came to hunting.  He never hesitated to kill when given the order and didn't hold back in a fight.  Watching the angel in hand to hand combat was a breathtaking sight; Cas could slice and weave and dance his way through a room full of monsters and come out the other side with hardly a hair out of place, his blade dripping with blood.

There was no doubt as to why Castiel had been a commander for so long.  He himself was a weapon, but both Sam and Dean were still uncomfortable giving him orders - no matter how natural it seemed for Cas to follow them.

They took a few moments to rouse the woman and send her running before heading back to the car.  In the silence, Dean watched Cas absently cleaning the smears of blood off his hunting knife, dragging an old towel along the blade.

"Should we go to the nest now?" Cas asked him calmly.

For a moment, Dean hesitated, seeing an eager spark in Castiel's blue eyes.  Cas would leave the decision up to Dean, ultimately, but there was no doubt he was itching for a fight.  He thought that maybe Cas had just been better at hiding it when he was a full blown angel, but since becoming human, Cas' ingrained instinct to fight and snuff out the dark things in the world had become much more evident. 

"Yeah, before they realise their buddy hasn't come back yet," Dean eventually decided.  The sooner they cleared out this nest, the sooner they could go home and Dean could sit down with Cas and watch some of those old British comedies.

 


	2. Chapter 2

It was an old abandoned warehouse - because that's what it always was - and the place looked ready to fall apart.

 Cas was as still and silent as a shadow beside him, but he could still feel the air practically vibrating around the angel, Cas' eagerness to jump into battle like a physical presence.

"Cas, you gotta chill out, buddy," Dean whispered, somewhat fondly and somewhat warily.  "We're not even sure how many are in there.  We might have to back out and wait for Sam."

Cas' face twitched with a displeased expression, blue eyes wide and focused on the double doors of the warehouse some hundred yards away.  They were in a stand of trees nearby, the light breeze rustling the leaves around them and creating the perfect cover for their hushed conversation and small movements.

 "I wish I could still see like I used to," Cas grumbled.  "I would have been able to tell you exactly how many were in there."

 Dean spotted two cars parked around the corner of the building, just visible from where they stood.

 There can't be too many," Dean reasoned.

 "If you're basing that on those two cars, your reasoning is a bit flimsy," Castiel said, because of course he would have already noticed the cars, the jerk noticed everything first.  "There could be ten more cars on the other side of the building.  We have no way of knowing if there is a single vampire or fifty in there."

 "Well then what do you suggest?"  Dean snarked.

 "I want to go in."

 "Alright fine.  But we go in  _quiet_ and if there's too many for us to handle we bail and wait for Sam."

 "Fine."

The wind had picked up and it covered the sound of their footsteps nicely, though not so much the cringe-worthy squeak of the doors opening.  They waited with bated breath for a few moments before moving on when no sound from inside alerted them to any immediate danger.  They left the door open, in case they had to run for it, and eased their way inside the building.

The place looked mostly deserted, save for a few dirty mattresses spread around the floor, and it looked like a dead end...until they were very suddenly surrounded by snarling, spitting vampires.

Dean's back hit Castiel's and he counted twelve vamps circled around them, having slithered out of invisible hiding spots like cockroaches.  They didn't even have time to think before the vamps were charging them and absolute chaos ensued.

Hot blood splashed across the side of Dean's face just as he swung his machete, taking the head off one brown-haired vampire, and threw his elbow over his shoulder, hearing a satisfying crunch under the impact of bone on bone.

He ducked a punch and shoved his blade up, ripping it free and spinning out of the way of another fist and booking it to the other side of the room.  He glanced over in time to see Cas tearing through three vamps like a Tasmanian devil, using one hand to plunge the syringe of dead man's blood into the chest of one vamp, kicking the second in the stomach hard enough to fold him in half and slicing the head off the third -  already moving on to a fourth when Dean had to look away and turn around the corner of a stack of old pallets. 

He cut off the head of the first vamp around the tower but was tackled to the ground by the second, the rickety and poorly stacked pallets teetering when Dean's leg kicked out, and then it was crashing down over them, most of them hitting the vampire and knocking him out cold.

Dean shoved the limp body off him and pulled himself free of the splintered wood, looking around frantically in the sudden stillness.

Cas - and however many vamps had been left - were nowhere to be seen.

Panic immediately pushed up Dean's throat.  "Cas?!"

He turned in a circle, stumbling over the broken pallets and calling out to the angel again.

It took him longer than it should have, to notice the trails in the dirty floor leading off to a side room, and Dean scrambled forward, grabbing his machete off the floor while rage bubbled in his veins.  Buffy would look like a fucking armature once Dean was done with whichever vampires thought they could take Cas away from him.

They hadn't gotten far with the angel and as soon as Dean went through the little side door he was following bodies instead of dirt tracks.  Two headless corpses lay in the hallway and further up he could see just the feet of another body jutting out from an open doorway.  An empty syringe halfway down the hall and Dean started running, skidding around the corner and through another door just in time to see Cas get shoved to the floor, his back hitting the concrete with a dull thud and a sharp gasp.  His bloody hunting knife was three feet away, out of his reach and four vamps held each of his limbs, pinning him to the floor like a butterfly to a show board.

There was a fifth vampire straddling Cas' hips, sneering as the angel snarled and bucked under him, trying to throw him off.

Dean didn't even bother with his usual taunting, just charged forward and full-body tackled the closest vamp to the floor with a wordless cry.  He pinned the monster with a knee to the chest and then pressed his palm to the edge of his blade, crushing through its neck and severing its head.

When he turned, Cas was already on his feet, one vamp sprawled on her back, another motionless a few feet away with its head twisted around too far, and the other two crowding Cas into a corner.

Dean threw his machete and it spun through the air, imbedding itself firmly into the spine of one.

The last one screamed in rage, spit flying from it's fangs, and Dean rushed forward - but Cas was faster.  The angel's first darted out in a blur and collided with the vamps face so hard Dean could hear the wet sound of bones being crushed.  The scream of rage cut off abruptly and the vamp hit the dusty floor like a sack of potatoes.

In the silence that followed, Cas and Dean's laboured breathing was all they could hear.  They looked to one another, giving short nods that neither was in immediate need of a hospital and Dean sat down in the middle of the floor, his legs feeling like jelly as the adrenaline drained from his blood.

When he finally got his breathing under control, he looked up.

Cas had a trickle of blood running down the side of his face from under his hairline and when he walked across the room to pick up his hunting knife, his movements were stiff.

"You ok?"  Dean asked.

Cas grimaced when he stood back up, rolling his shoulder slowly.  "I think so."

"You hit the floor pretty hard." 

An answering grunt of agreement was all Dean got so he stood and made his way over, his knee giving a little twinge. 

The two of them headed back to the motel, shuffling into the room and locking the door, double checking it before silently shedding their dirty clothes.  Cas was down to his jeans before he fell back onto his bed, but when he gave a sudden, sharp cry of pain, Dean rushed over.

"Where does it hurt?" 

Cas grit his teeth like he was trying to crush gravel between them.  "Shoulder."

The same one he'd been stretching out in the warehouse, Dean noticed.  He placed a hand on Cas' chest, pushing firmly, "Ok, take it easy, Cas, just lay back.  _Carefully_."

Once Cas was leaning back with two pillows to support him, Dean gently lifted the sleeve of his tshirt, just able to see a vicious bruise already purple and red, creeping around the curve of his shoulder.  

"Jesus, Cas..." he muttered.  "Can you lift your arm enough to get this off or should I cut it?"

It was immediately evident that Cas couldn't raise his arm past shoulder height and Dean watched him swallow around a groan of pain, his heart thudding too hard in his chest. 

He made short work of the shirt, tossing the rags onto the floor and gently coaxing Cas to sit up so he could get a look at his back. 

"Shit, Cas, there’s no way you got this just from hitting the floor."

Most of his entire left shoulder blade was an angry red and purple bruise.  Not a single break in the skin, all the bleeding was happening underneath.

"Two of them got hold of me...slammed me into a door frame."

When Dean barely brushed his fingers over the ridge of Castiel's shoulder blade, he cried out sharply and jerked out of Dean's hold.

"Stop  _poking_ at me, it hurts!"

"I need to check if you broke anything, Cas!"

"If you touch me again I swear to -  _ah!_   Get  _off_ me!"  Castiel hissed and recoiled like an angry cat, glaring at Dean through eyes narrowed to slits.

Dean threw up his hands, half in frustration and half in a sign of peace.  There had been no unnatural shifting of bone under his prodding fingers - _brief_  as the prodding had been - and with the way the angel was glaring at him now Dean would have been nothing more than a black smudge on the floor if he still had all his powers.

"Fine.   _Be_ a little bitch, then.  Here," he tossed a bottle of extra strength Tylenol over to him, which Cas caught deftly in the hand of his uninjured shoulder.

It wasn't unusual, this behavior.  Every once in a while when Cas got injured with something more than a sprained ankle or bump on the head, his hackles would rise and he'd snap at anyone that got too close.  Like an injured animal backed into a corner; much as Dean wanted to touch and reassure himself that he was ok, sometimes it was best just to let the angel come down on his own and realize there was no danger left to bite at.

Still, that didn’t stop him from worrying.  Nor did it ease the squeeze in his gut when he watched Cas dump three pills into his hand and dry swallow them like a pro.  Or, more accurately, like the strung out version of the fallen angel Dean had seen in 2014.  They may have avoided that exact future but Dean knew that version of Castiel was in there – deep down maybe, but completely possible.  If there were any living beings that were set up for the most addictive personalities ever, it had to be angels.  They never did anything half-assed.  Any challenge presented to them was either completely ignored or tackled full-boar.

Dean busied himself with taking a shower, spending longer than necessary making sure all the shampoo was out of his hair, before reluctantly getting out.

He snuck a glance at Cas and it was immediately obvious the three pills had already started going to work.  Cas was pawing through his duffle bag, movements less stiff now and eyes unfocused like he was trying to entertain a hundred thoughts at once.  Which he probably was;  _absentminded_ was too gentle a word for the fallen angel on most days.

But still, the edge had effectively been taken off and Dean had to ask twice if Cas wanted the shower before he actually looked up.

He rolled his shoulder gingerly, wincing a little but grabbing his change of clothes and heading for the bathroom.  A moment later, steam was billowing under the door and Dean was shoving the bottle of Tylenol to the bottom of his own bag.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 “ _Dean…_ ”

Castiel writhed under him, his back arching off the bed.

“ _Dean…_ ”

Echoes of power sparked under his fingertips as he dragged them over the angel’s soft, golden skin.  In the wake of his touch, Castiel trembled.

“Dean, _wake up_!”

He startled awake with an ungraceful snort and the heat of a blush already lighting his face.  Because of course something _that_ lovely had been a dream and of course _Castiel_ had to be the one to pull him from it.  

Dean did so tire of the universe's sense of humor.

Castiel grumbled off to his right somewhere.  “For all you complain about not getting enough sleep I’d be worried you were dead if it weren’t for the snoring."

Dean dragged a hand down his face, still trying to shove away the wisps of his 'good dream' even as he pretended he didn’t have a raging hard on from it.

The room was dark and the clock on the nightstand between the beds told him it was way too fucking early for him to be conscious after a hunt.  When he finally had the mental capacity to do so, Dean found Castiel’s profile in the dark, a sliver of his face illuminated by the orange light streaming through the threadbare curtain over the single window.

“What’s wrong?  Is Sam ok?”  Dean asked, his voice slurred and thoughts still a smear in his sluggish brain.  Because why else would Cas wake him up in the middle of the night if it wasn’t an emergency?  He made an attempt to sit up, but his legs were too tangled in the sheets to get his feet on the floor.

“What?  Yes, of course he’d alright.” The _idiot_ was implied.

“Then why am I conscious?!”  Dean hissed, finally getting a foot free of the sheets.  As long as he was up he was going to take a piss.

“Well I wouldn’t have had to wake you if you hadn’t hidden the pain killers.”

Cas sounded grumpy.  Grumpier than normal anyway, and his voice was rough.  Not the kind of rough that meant he’d just woken up himself but the kind of rough that suggested he’d never fallen asleep in the first place.

Dean sighed, freeing himself form the blankets at last and stumbling for the bathroom. 

“You took three extra strength pills less than five hours ago, you can’t have any more yet.”

Castiel kept talking right through the bathroom door when Dean closed it.

“But I am _in pain_.  I need pain _killers_.”

“Then suck it up, Cas, you’re not getting any more!”  He flushed the toilet and opened the door hard enough that it bounced off the bathtub.  “Your liver will thank me.”

“Says the man who drinks his body weigh in beer every few days.”

Dean bristled.  “Look, I know you get crabby when you’re in pain but I will not let you OD in a shitty motel just because you can’t handle a bruised shoulder.”

Though he could not see his face, Dean could feel the heat of Castiel’s glare through the dark and it was times like this he wondered if there wasn’t a spec of grace still left in the angel, because it certainly felt like there was electricity arching through the room.  All the hairs on the back of his arm stood on end.

But then the energy was dissipating, and then it was gone altogether.  In it’s place there was a frigid silence, Castiel’s sudden controlled exhale like an arctic breeze over Dean’s nerves.

“Oh, come on, man, I didn’t mean –”

“No, of course you’re right, Dean,” Castiel interrupted, “I am no stranger to pain and this is nothing compared to reconditioning or whatever it was Naomi kept doing to me.”  His voice was positively caustic, “I can _handle_ it.”

“Ok, the attitude isn’t necessary, Cas.  I get that you’re hurting but trying to guilt trip me into giving you drugs is just gonna piss me off.”  And he was pissed too. Pissed that Castiel could play him like a fucking fiddle and Dean could hardly stop from singing.

“I’m not trying to ‘guilt-trip’ you -”

Dean rolled his eyes at the air quotations. 

“I was simply _agreeing_ with you.  Its not my fault you chose to internalize my words and allow them to _make_ you feel guilty.”

Dean sputtered, feeling as if he was suddenly under fire.  “Don’t sit there and pretend every word you say isn’t a fucking heat seeking missile locked on to my cerebral cortex!”

“Please, I don’t need to disable the logic and reason center of your brain, you do that perfectly well on your own.”

“You saying I’m too emotional?”

“I'm saying you’re _always_ emotional.”

“Well, I guess someone with the emotional capacity of a cinder block _would_ say that!”

“You don’t need to be so sensitive, Dean –”

“Fuck you, Cas!”

The bed creaked when Castiel stood, continuing to speak as if he wasn’t the least bit bothered by Dean’s growing rage. 

“Just tell me where the pills are and we can -”

“Would you shut up about the pills, you’re not getting them!”

“Dean -”

“Yeah, yeah, your shoulder hurts, I _know_.  Suck.  It.  Up.”

“Why should I when I have a way to get rid of the pain?!”

“Because taking too many pill can hurt you, Cas!”

“Why do you _care_?!”

Silence rang between them, the after-shock of Castiel’s words like the resonating vibration of a gong inside Dean’s head.  Part of him expected the angel to start back-tracking, saying he didn’t mean that, but all Dean heard was anticipatory silence as Cas waited for his answer.

“Why do I _care_?” Dean had to repeat, crushing the words like gravel between his teeth.  “Why do I _care_ if you poison yourself?  Why do I fucking _care_?  Are you _kidding me_?”

Finally, it seemed Castiel realized he’d cross some invisible line.  It was a feeling the angel was pretty familiar with since he naively crossed lines on a daily basis.  The air shifted between them at once, the charge of Cas’ own annoyance vaporising instantly.  In it’s place was something uncertain and hesitant, a tell-tale sign that Cas realized he’d done something wrong but wasn’t sure what it was yet.

Normally, the look on his face – the wideness of his blue eyes, the little gap between his lips, the furrow in his brow – was all it took for Dean to immediately turn into a pile of reassuring goo.  _Normally_ , it was enough to send Dean into a gentle lecture while he watched the worry lines ease around the angel’s eyes.

But maybe it was the fact that it was too dark for him to see Cas’ face or maybe it was the fact that he’d just found out that Castiel believed Dean didn’t give a fuck if he killed himself to avoid some temporary pain, but – this time – the sudden unease radiating off Cas not only didn’t dampen the flame inside him, it fanned it into a fire.

He moved to the door and practically punched the light switch on before turning back and stalking right up in Cas’ personal space.

Cas’ eyes were narrowed against the sudden light, his face pale and pinched with pain and a bruise was blossoming across his cheek from where a vampire had probably caught him in the face.

Dean felt the anger licking at his insides dampen.  He took a deep breath and reflexively raised a hand to scrub at his face and felt his heart seize when Castiel flinched like he expected to be hit, recoiling against the wall.

“Cas –”

Castiel gave a startled shout when his injured shoulder hit the wall and nearly curled in on himself, his face draining of color as he gasped around the pain.

“Jesus, Cas, here…come here.  Sit down.”  He slowly let his hand settled on the angel’s good shoulder, but Castiel was too distracted by the pain in his other one to be concerned about the touch and he let Dean guide him to the edge of his bed.

It had been a long time since Castiel had last flinched away like that.  After a few incidents in the bunker when Sam had reached in front of him for a book or Dean had gone to clap him on the shoulder, he and Sam had finally gotten the whole story about how Castiel had been tied down and cut open so Metatron could extract his grace.  It had left both brothers sick to their stomach and it had taken a few months of careful movements and gentle touches to warm Castiel up to physical contact again.  But every once in a while when he was particularly on edge, it seemed his fight or flight instincts kicked in a little too hard and all that old fear – of touch-equals-pain – came back full force.

Dean’s anger had officially evaporated and been replaced by that heart-squeezing, gut-wrenching sensation of helpless protectiveness.  When he moved to unbutton Castiel’s shirt – he’d given the angel one of his plaid button-ups because it was easier for him to get on than a tshirt – Cas flinched again and Dean’s heart throbbed.

“It’s ok,” he promised, his voice as soft as he could make it.  He carefully undid all the buttons.  “I didn’t get a good enough look earlier.  If you're really still in pain, I might have missed something so I just want to check again.”

 _Because you wouldn’t let me do it properly the first time_ , Dean wanted to chide, but the fact that Castiel looked like he was fighting hard just to turn his back to him made Dean swallow the words back down his constricted throat.

He slipped the shirt of Cas’ shoulders and sucked a breath past his teeth.  It looked worse now.  It definitely looked worse.  The skin from the top of Cas’ shoulder to halfway down the right side of his back was mottled purple and blue and he was holding himself stiffly, as if even tiny movements were causing him pain.

“Shit…fuck, you might have actually broken a rib or something,” he muttered.  “I’m gonna put my hand between your shoulder blades.”  Because back when they were trying to wean Cas on to physical touches, warning him when they were going to put their hands on him had been an important lesson that only had to be learned once.  If Cas was back in that headspace, Dean didn’t want to startle him further. 

Cas flinched a little all the same when Dean laid his hand on his back.

“Does it hurt when you breathe?” 

Cas shook his head silently.

“Ok, good, that usually means you’re clear of a broken rib.  But I’m gonna press gently on each one and you need to tell me if any of them hurt more than the ones before it ‘cause you might have fractured one, ok?”

“Ok.”

Cas’ voice was small and tight with ambient pain and Dean let his thumb stroke over the angel’s skin once before he slid his hand around to the rib right under his scapula.  He pressed gently against the bone and stopped when he hard Castiel suck in a breath.

“Hurt?”

“No more than it has been.”

“Alright.  You’ll know if it’s fractured, trust me.  Next one.”

He got through four ribs without incident when they were interrupted by a sharp knock on the door.

They both looked up, then Castiel glanced over his shoulder with a deep frown.

“What the hell,” Dean muttered.  He looked over at the clock on the night stand.  “It’s four in the fucking morning.”  He stood, told Cas to stay put on the bed and grabbed his gun from his duffle bag.

When he looked through the peep hole he swore under his breath upon seeing two police officers standing outside.

“It’s the cops,” he whispered to Cas.  The angel shrugged unhelpfully. 

Had someone spotted them at the warehouse?  Surely if they had the police wouldn’t be knocking on their door six hours later.  He shoved the gun in the waistband of his boxers – because past experience told him that monsters could dress up like cops perfectly well – and undid the chain lock across the door.

“What’s the problem, officers?”  He plastered on the closest thing to a smile he could summon but it did little to ease the stoic expression on either of their faces.

“We got a call for a domestic disturbance in this room,” one of them said.  He was a huge man, almost as tall as Sam, but with none of the kindness that permeated his brother’s mannerisms.  He had dark skin and a no-nonsense expression that demanded even more respect with the grey around his temples.

The other officer was shorter but no less intimidating with his blond hair in a military cut and sharp brown eyes.  Dean still scowled when he realised that some nosy occupants had probably called the cops when they heard him and Cas arguing.

His smile tightened.  “Well, sorry you came all the way out here but it’s not what you think –”

“Yeah, it never is,” the tall one drawled, looking thoroughly unamused.  “Sir, step aside, we’d like to speak to your partner.”

“He’s not my -” the officer shouldered the door open and they stepped in to the room; Dean bit his tongue, immediately knowing what the two of them would see:

An overly aggressive man trying to get them to leave and Castiel – who radiated naivety and had those big blue doe eyes – sitting shirtless on the bed with a bruise on his cheek and his back painted black and blue.

Castiel looked from one officer to the other, his eyes landing uncertainly on Dean behind them for a brief moment before he looked back to the tallest one without saying a word.

“Sir, are you alright?” the shorter one asked Castiel, his voice marginally less intimidating than the tall one’s.

“Yes, I’m fine.”  Cas sounded genuinely confused. 

The tall one pulled a small notepad from his pocket, his back to Dean while the short one turned so he could keep an eye on him.

“We got a call from a few doors down.  They said they heard ‘two men shouting, then the sound like someone hit the wall and a yell of pain’.”  He fixed his eyes on Castiel.  “How did you get that bruise on your face?”

Blood boiling, Dean had to fight hard to stay where he was.  Charging at an officer would only get him thrown in jail, but he couldn’t help snapping, “What the hell are you suggesting?”

The short one held up a hand, his expression stern.  “Sir, we’re not talking to you.  Be quiet.”

Dean huffed a breath through his nose like an angry bull, able to actually taste the rage on the back of his tongue.

How fucking _dare_ they insinuate he would hurt Cas like that?  How fucking _dare_ they –

“What’s your name?” the tall one asked Cas.

Cas visibly hesitated.  “Castiel.”

If either of them were taken aback by the strange name, they didn’t show it, and when the tall one spoke again, his voice had gone a bit more gentle, a bit more patient. 

“Ok, Castiel.  My name is Mike and I need you to answer some questions.  Can you do that here or do you want to go outside?”

Dean bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood, because he knew what the guy was _actually_ asking.

_Can you answer these questions in front of your abusive boyfriend or are you too scared?_

Castiel, predictably, only looked more confused by the question.  His eyes darted around briefly, as if trying to see whatever it was the officer thought would make it impossible to answer his questions.

“No, this is fine.”

“Ok.  How did you get that bruise on your cheek?”

Castiel’s wide eyes immediately flew to Dean and Dean knew just what that would look like to the two cops.  They didn’t know that on their last hunt Dean had had to diffuse a situation when the waitress at the diner tried to make polite conversation by asking Cas what they were doing in such a small town.  They didn’t know that Castiel was only looking to him because he wasn’t sure what he was and was not allowed to tell them.

Which, ironically, is exactly what the officers would think, except they thought Castiel was looking to him because he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to tell them Dean had beaten him.

“Did someone hit you?” the officer coaxed.

Again, Cas’ eyes went to Dean and he looked nervous now.  He knew there was something going on that he didn’t quite grasp and he knew there was a right and wrong way to answer these questions, but like so many of these kinds of interactions, there were nuances that he just couldn’t pick up on and he lacked the human understanding to solve those kinds of social puzzles.

It made Dean ache to see the lost look on Cas’ face and he bit his lip, wishing the officers _had_ been monsters in disguise so he could just shoot them and get back to making sure Cas didn’t need to go to the hospital.

“Castiel, did someone hit you?”

Blue eyes flicking to Dean again and _Mike_ glanced over his shoulder to where Dean was smouldering by the door.

“Don’t look at him, Castiel, look at me _.  Did someone hit you_?”

Dean could practically _see_ the path the angel’s thoughts were taking.  Just last month he’d told Castiel that he couldn’t just tell people the truth when they asked what he was doing in town.  Castiel knew he couldn’t say, “Yes, a vampire punched me in the face.”  So, in his black and white angelic brain, if he couldn’t say _yes_ , then all he could say was _no_.

“N-no.” 

Dean felt sick, because this was a totally unfair position for Cas to be forced into.  He was always trying so hard to understand social nuances and he was always so scared of doing something wrong.  And he _knew_ that there was something going right over his head; he thought he was doing something wrong by not being able to figure out how to answer the officer’s questions correctly and it broke Dean’s heart a little.

He wanted to tell the officers point blank that they’d walked in on something they had no hope of understanding.  He wanted to explain to them that the situation wasn’t at all how it seemed and that Castiel was a creature that didn’t think the same way as they did.

He _wanted_ to fucking tell them he’d never lay a hand on the fucking angel; that he had, in fact, being trying his best to help him before they came around banging on their door.

But he couldn’t say any of that, because then they’d just both be carted away on the grounds of being stoned out of their minds.

“Ok, so if no one hit you, how did you get the bruise?”

To be fair, Dean told himself, the officer – _Mike_ – was at least speaking kindly to Castiel and his body language had shifted into something much less threatening than what he’d presented Dean with.  The short one, however, kept most of his attention on Dean, hands on his hip and close to his gun.

He tried to take a few deep breaths and push the anger away, trying to see things from their point of view.

_“Please, I don’t need to disable the logic and reason center of your brain, you do that perfectly well on your own.”_

_“You saying I’m too emotional?”_

_“I'm saying you’re always emotional.”_

Calm.  He could stay calm and be objective.  He _could_.

To these officers – who had an air that suggested they’d been doing this for a very long time – all they saw was a posturing, aggressive alpha male blocking the door and a naïve, half naked, wide-eyed and bruised quiet man fidgeting nervously on the bed.

Dean’s shoulders slumped.  How the hell were they going to get out of this?  Nothing he said would be taken as anything other than a lie to avoid admitting he’d beaten his boyfriend and nothing Cas said would be taken as anything other than a lie to appease said abusive boyfriend.

“I don’t know what to say,” Castiel admitted truthfully, looking thoroughly distressed.

Mike nodded as if he’d heard that a hundred times before.  “Just tell us the truth.”

 _No_.  Dean’s stomach sank.  He knew exactly what Cas would say next.

“I’m not allowed to.”

 _Fuck_.

Both officers shifted, their entire demeanor changing into something even less friendly and Dean tensed when they shared a look. 

Mike looked to Castiel again and gently said, “Ok, I think it might be best if you both come down to the station with us.”

He took a step forward and Castiel flinched away, slipping off the edge of the bed to stand and back away a few paces. 

“ _No_.”

“Castiel –”

“I’m not going _anywhere._ ”

Hot on the heals of no sleep, constant pain and a setback in his fear of touch-equals-pain from the whole Metatron thing, Castiel looked legitimately scared at the threat of being taken somewhere against his will and Dean’s feet were moving before his brain could remind him it was a terrible idea.

The shorter officer’s hand on his chest reminded him well enough. 

“ _That’s close enough_.”

Something alarmingly close to holy wrath briefly cut through the fear in Castiel’s eyes when the angel saw the officer with his hand on Dean and Dean silently begged him not to lose his cool here.  Tried to explain using only his limited micro-expressions that this was a _very_ delicate situation.

“Dean –”

“Cas, it’s ok, just -”

“Alright, buddy,” barked the short one, pressing against Dean’s chest with one hand while the other went to the back of his belt.  “Outside, come on.”

Panic flashed in Cas’ eyes and Dean swallowed bile.  His voice shook with restraint as he allowed the office to back him out the door.

“I’m just gonna be outside, Cas.  I’m right here.”

His words did little to ease the fearful glint in Castiel’s eyes and the angel backed towards the wall when Mike took a careful step closer. 

“I just want to talk without Dean here,” Mike told him, his hands up in a sign of peace.

Dean saw Castiel look to him in a desperate plea for guidance one last time before he was shoved outside and the officer pulled the door closed behind them.

Immediately, Dean walked away a few paces, his breathing ragged and his heart pounding.  Now that there was no danger of it further upsetting Castiel, Dean had no reason not to let his anger at the absolute _unfairness_ of the situation show.

“This is _bullshit_ ,” he spat at the officer.  The man’s stoic face didn’t so much as twitch.  “I would _never_ hurt him!  I would _never_ hurt Cas.”

The officer considered him carefully but said nothing, which only served to infuriate Dean more.  He glanced at the door but it was still firmly closed and the curtains were drawn over the window.

He paced like a caged lion.  “What’s your name anyway?”  he snapped.  After all, it had been a while since he’d updated his shit list.

“Officer Calwell.”

The door banged open and Castiel charged through it, looking at once furious and distressed.  He was still without a shirt and went straight for Dean as Mike appeared in the doorway and called out to Calwell, looking as harried as a man like him could look.

“Grab him!”

Like a shot, Calwell’s arms went around Castiel, pinning the angel’s arms to his sides and Castiel choked around a grunt of pain.

“Hey!  Let him go before I rip you’re fucking head off!”  Dean charged forward but Mike was already on him and he found himself slammed up against the side of his own car, cuffs clicking shut around his wrists a second later.

“What the fuck, are you fucking kidding me?!” Dean growled over his shoulder.  He couldn’t see where Castiel and Calwell were but he could hear Calwell trying to subdue the angel.  Every few seconds he heard Castiel gasp with pain and he felt rage bubbling inside him with nowhere to go.

He jerked in Mike’s hold, snarling like a dog.

Mike was suddenly patting him down and it took him no time at all to pull the gun from the back of his pajama bottoms.

“You got any other weapons, Dean?”  Mike asked him calmly.

“ _No_.”

He was yanked away from the Impala and walked over to the cruiser behind it, then promptly shoved in to the back seat.

 _Now_ he could see Castiel – where he was face down on the cold pavement with Calwell pressing a hand between his shoulders, hands cuffed behind his back.  The fact that the officer was carefully avoiding touching his injury did little to calm the fire racing along Dean’s veins and when Cas turned his head to look for him, Dean could see tears of pain in the angel’s eyes.

Dean kicked at the wall of fiberglass in front of his feet.

Fuck, this was so _unfair_.  It was utter bullshit and if they thought for once second Dean wouldn't kill them both for hurting Cas the second he was free -

Mike was talking in to the radio on his shoulder.  Castiel struggled weakly in Calwell’s hold, having next to no leverage with his injured shoulder and the fact that he was face down and in what was probably excruciating pain.  Dean recalled how he couldn’t even lift his arm to shoulder height and now both of them had now been forced behind his back.

When an ambulance pulled up five minutes later, Dean hadn’t managed to calm down any and he watched with a growing sense of helpless frustration as the cuffs were taken off Cas and he was manhandled on to a stretcher and _restrained_.

 _Fuck_ , _what the fuck_.

Dean screamed through the closed window when Cas started pulling at the restraints, sheer terror glazing his eyes.  They wrapped padded cuffs around his wrists that were attached to the side of the stretcher and then an EMT fastened a thick strap across the angel's chest, seemingly not even noticing the fact that his patient was on the verge of a panic attack.

Dean could hardly hear anything inside the police cruiser but his brain helpfully supplied the little whimpers and gasps likely spilling from Castiel’s lips in that moment…because he’d heard them before, back when Castiel would have waking nightmares about this _exact thing_.  About being tied down again.  About being helpless  _again_.

“ _Cas_!”

The last thing he saw before the back doors to the ambulance closed was the EMT flicking a syringe against the light and then bringing it down to Cas’ arm.


	4. Chapter 4

Dean had decided, since it was the only thing he _could_ do, that he would devote the next forty-eight hours of his life to annoying the fuck out of Mike and Calwell.

“I want my phone call,” he said over and over and over.  “When do I get my phone call?  I want a phone call.  Get me my phone call.”

They ignored him like they were professional cops or something.

When they finally got to the police station – the Southwest Presinct, Dean noted – he was finally dragged to a payphone and Calwell stood watch while he dialed Sam’s cell phone number.

He tried not to think about Cas.  Tried not to think about how scared he looked when he realised he was being tied down.  Tried not to think about how he was probably sedated and confused and unable to figure out what the fuck was happening to him.  Tried not to think about why they’d sedated him in the first place or worry about what he’d told Mike and if they thought the angel was crazy.

Instead he focused all his mental energy into praying to every god he’d ever met that Sam wasn’t taking a nap or out buying groceries.

“Hello?”

Dean released a harsh breath, thanking whoever was listening that something had fucking gone right tonight.

“Sammy –”

“Dean?!  Where the _fuck_ are you, I’ve been trying to call you since last night!  You never called me to tell me how the hunt went, I am literally halfway through fucking Colorado, you ass hole –”

“Sam, _shut up_ , I only got one phone call to explain, so let me talk!”

“One – _are you in jail_?!”

“ _Yes_.  Me and Cas had an argument at the motel and some fuck-wad called the cops for a domestic dispute.  When they got there they saw Cas all banged up from the hunt and thought I hurt him.  So they arrested me and took Cas away in an ambulance.”

For a moment, Sam's disbelieving silence was all that could be heard and Dean waited impatiently.

“Ok,” Sam sounded very much like he was quickly trying to wrap his brain around the ridiculousness of the situation.  “Ok.  Give me some more details.  What did you and Cas tell them?”

“They wouldn’t let me talk and even if I had they wouldn’t have believed anything I said, and Cas,” Dean sighed, remembering the way Cas had looked at him, silently begging for Dean to tell him what to say.  “And Cas didn’t know how to answer them.  You remember a month ago on that hunt with the waitress?  Well when the cop asked him to tell the truth about how he got the bruise on his face, Cas said he ‘wasn’t allowed to’.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.  And then they made me go outside and I think Cas might have _actually_ told the truth then ‘cause next thing I know they’ve got him tied to a stretcher while they sedate him.”  He ran a hand down his face while Sam cursed in his ear some more.  “They tied him down, Sammy.  _They tied him down_.  He looked so fucking scared.”

On the other end of the line, Sam took a steadying breath.  “He’ll be fine, Dean.  We’ll figure this out.  What precinct are you at?”

“Southwest.”

“I’ll be there in,” Sam paused to look at his watch.  “I’ll be there late tomorrow night.  Now listen to me, if they answered the call and arrested you at the same time, that means they arrested you without a warrant.  By law, if they can’t get Cas to press charges, find concrete proof that you did something illegal _or_ get you to confess to something within forty-eight hours, they’ll have to let you go anyway.

“I know you don’t have much time, so here’s what we’re going to do.  I’m going show up there tomorrow evening and be your lawyer.  They’re probably not going press you too hard because, sad to say, a domestic violence case probably isn’t at the top of their priority list.  But they will be running it through the basic procedures.  If they pressure you to confess to something or start asking questions before I get there, just tell them over and over that you’re not saying anything ‘till your lawyer gets there.  When I do get there, they’ll allow us time to talk in private and I’ll need the whole story to figure out if they’ve even got probable cause here.  Even if they do, probable cause is a pretty abstract concept and can usually be moulded in our favor.  So, hang tight, keep your mouth shut and your temper under control and I’ll be there soon.”

Sam sounded so confident and so focused that Dean immediately felt a weight lift of his shoulders and he rested his forehead against the - likely filthy - metal box around the payphone, relief spilling through his chest.

“Thanks, Sammy.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Dean hung up and Calwell wasted no time grabbing him by the elbow and steering him down a long hallway, presumably for a few solid hours of waiting and paperwork and then more waiting; Dean was no stranger to how this process worked.  But, much to his surprise, he was put in a room by himself.  He’d been in rooms like it before - with a single table and two chairs on either side of it.  On one side of the room, a dark one-way window was set up.  He was in an interrogation room.

The brief thought of trying to break out surfaced and then floated away.  They’d walked past a dozen officers and went through at least two doors that required a key card.  Even his delinquent skills weren't that good.

So he was left to pace and worry about what was happening to Castiel for nearly _three fucking hours_ before someone came back through the door.  It was Mike and he had a thin manilla folder in his hand.

Dean stayed on the far side of the room, toying with the cuffs still around his wrists, trying to read the man's mood.  But it was like looking into the eyes of a tree stump, there was nothing there to read, and Dean got the distinct impression that no matter what he said - truth or not - that Mike had already decided he was an abusive ass-hole and now was just working on proving it.

“Take a seat,” Mike ordered, tossing the folder on the table.

Hesitating only briefly with the instinct to be as difficult as possible, Dean sat.  Despite the feeling in his gut telling him this was going to be difficult either way, the idea was that the more he cooperated the faster he would be able to leave and go save Cas.  Because that’s what it would be.  He would be saving the angel from whatever they were doing to him at the hospital.  Tying him down, doping him up.

“What’s your last name, Dean?”  Mike asked, flipping open the folder and click his pen.  He didn’t even look up.

“Smith,” Dean sneered back.  He immediately cursed himself.  He was supposed to be _nice_ here.  But he couldn’t give them his real name.  Dean Winchester had died years ago…according to the FBI.

“Right.”  Mike took a deep breath and looked up.  “Well, let's recap the facts here, Mr. Smith.  You had a wallet with no ID in it and,” he glanced down at the forms, “Three stolen credit cards, and a handgun in your pants.”  Mike laced his fingers together on the table top and fixed Dean with an unreadable expression.  "We were responding to a domestic violence call that involved the sounds of someone being thrown against the wall and crying out in pain.  When we got there you tried to keep us from entering the room.  When we got in to the room, we found another man with several injuries.  When asked to tell the truth about how he had gotten those injuries, Castiel repeatedly looked at you and told us he was ‘not allowed to’.  Do you know what probable cause is, Mr. _Smith_?”

Dean leaned back in his chair, feeling his stomach sinking like a stone in the ocean.  Mike’s expression had gone from carefully controlled to something dangerous and disgusted.  The officer leaned forward, the overhead light shifting across his face and making him look menacing.

“I don’t like people who hurt others, Dean.  I especially don’t like people who hurt those that can’t defend themselves.”

“Cas is perfectly capable of defending himself,” Dean snapped.  He knew Sam told him not to say anything, but dammit, Castiel was not some damsel in distress that needed saving and, more importantly, Dean needed to convince the wanna be hero on the other side of the table that he wasn't the dragon holding Cas hostage.  Cas was strong.  Cas was a fighter.  Cas could rip this guy’s head from his shoulders if given the chance.

“It didn’t look like it from where I was standing.”

Dean had to actually bite his tongue to keep from saying anything else.  Because _fuck_ this guy.  Cas had gotten those injuries doing what this guy and his coworkers couldn’t.  Cas had gotten those injuries protecting the people in this city from the stuff of their nightmares.  _Cas_ was the fucking hero in this story; Cas had helped save the day and they’d repaid him by tying him to a bed and drugging him.

_“So, hang tight, keep your mouth shut and your temper under control and I’ll be there soon.”_

Dean said nothing.

“Have you taken any drugs in the last twenty-four hours?”

“What?  _No_.”  Dean was blindsided by the question and it must have shown on his face, for as Mike checked off a box on the paper work, he explained.

“Your boyfriend was either intoxicated or suffers from a mental illness, I was simply trying to narrow down the possibility of either.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Dean corrected numbly.

Mike didn’t look convinced.  “Well whatever he is of yours, he’s not well.  Surely you know this.” 

“He’s just fine.”  Why did the man seem set on Castiel being some moron that spent most of his day bumping in to walls?  The hell was the guy's deal?  Sure, Castiel had a kind of innocence about him, but he wasn't incompetent.  All it took was two seconds talking to the guy to realize he was a deadly genius.

Although, even Dean had to admit that those big eyes and obvious naivety made people instantly want to wrap the angel in a blanket.  Dean himself wasn't immune to that, in fact he was probably the most susceptible to it. 

“He told me he’d gotten his injuries killing vampires.”

Dean closed his eyes and bowed his head. 

“Which means one of two things.  Either he’s delusional because of drugs or a mental disorder or he’s so scared of what _you’ll_ do to him if he actually tells us the truth that he resorted to making up something completely ridiculous.”

“Why would he do that?!  That makes no god damn sense!”

“Doesn’t it?  If he didn’t want to rat you out because he was scared of getting hurt but still wanted to get a free ticket out of the situation, his only option would be to get taken away in an ambulance.  If he convinced us that he was mentally unstable he knew it would buy him more time away from you.  Possibly enough time to figure out how to stay away from you permanently.  Brilliant, really, when you think about it.”

Dean blinked at the man dumbly, _wanting_ to say that if Cas wanted to fucking leave a situation he'd just walk the fuck out of it.  But that wasn't quite true either, because Cas had been in lots of situations he'd wanted to get out of but didn't know how.  So what he said instead was,  “I saw them sedating him.  I saw them tie him down.”

Mike shrugged.  “He was struggling and he very well _could_ be unstable, we don’t actually know yet.”

“They shouldn’t have tied him down,” Dean said.  His hands were freezing. 

“He could have hurt himself.  Or one of the EMTs.”

Dean stared at the man across the table.  Taking in his flat expression, the way his brown eyes glinted in the light over head like a scope in the sun, belying danger.  He wasn’t supposed to say anything, but he’d already fucked that rule.

“Can you just…can you just tell the hospital not to tie him down?  Please?” 

Something in the quietly desperate tilt to his voice seemed to needle it’s way through Mike’s cold exterior.

“…why?”

“Because…because not too long ago someone did that to him.  They tied him down and hurt him and I don’t think he’s really over it yet.”

“Was that person you, Dean?”

The softly asked question was like a physical blow and Dean’s eyes watered like he’d been slapped.

" _Fuck.  You._ ”  He spat.  Because the very idea – the very _thought_ – that Dean would ever, _ever_ do something like that to Cas… “I’m not saying a fucking word more until my lawyer gets here.”

Mike leaned back in his chair, his expression hardening further.  Without a word he flipped the file closed and left, the door clicking softly behind him.

 

* * *

 

Neither Mike nor Calwell came through the door again, only an nameless officer came every four hours to let him use the bathroom.  When he was escorted back, there was always a bottle of water and a sandwich on the table.  The light was never turned off and the only sleep Dean got was a few twenty minute naps with his head resting on his arms atop the metal table.  Even then, the few precious minutes of REM he got were interrupted by images of Castiel screaming in a hospital bed, wrist and ankles rubbed raw and bleeding from the restraints.

A hundred years later, when 'later tomorrow evening' finally rolled around, Sam was the next person through the door and Dean wished his hands weren’t cuffed so he could hug his stupid brother.

“Hey, how you holding up?”  Sam asked, dragging the second chair around to Dean’s side of the table and sitting down, his brown eyes narrow and concerned and a little angry.

But not at Dean, no, Dean knew the kind of anger he was reading in Sam’s face.  It was the ‘ _you fucked with my family now I’m going to fuck with you_ ’ expression.

“Fine, I guess.  You talk to anyone yet?  Hear anything about Cas?”

Sam shook his head.  “No, I came straight here.  They likely wouldn’t let me see him anyway if he was put in the hospital by the police.”

Sam was wearing an intimidating and expensive looking suit and his hair was pulled back in a low pony tail, leaving a few pieces of hair that were too short to stay in the elastic to hang out.  It made his face look angular and sharp; that combined with the suit, his six foot, four inches of height and the way his eyes were narrowed like a cat on the hunt made his brother look like the most imposing lawyer that had probably ever set foot in this precinct.

“Ok, first things first, tell me every detail about what happened from when you got back to the motel to right now.  _Every detail_ , Dean, don’t leave anything out.”

So Dean took a deep breath and did just that.  Told Sam how Cas had injured his shoulder in the warehouse.  Told him how Cas and him had gotten in an argument and why.  Told him about the cops and the accusations and how Cas had tired lying and then telling the truth and how neither had worked.  Told him everything Mike had said after they put him in this room.

When he was done, Sam leaned back in his chair, looking no less intense or focused.

“What’s my bail at?”  Dean asked as an after thought.  It didn’t really matter, since it was definitely more than what they could afford.

“Five grand.  Ok, our best shot here, I think, is personal recognizance.  Basically they release you on the condition that you legally agree to return for a court date.  Then we disappear like usual.”

“What about Cas?”

Sam waved a hand.  “Breaking someone out of a hospital is easy.  Getting you out of this room is the hard part.  Though we could just wait till the forty-eight hours is up.”  Sam looked at his watch.  “You called me around five in the morning yesterday so about another twelve hours.”

But Dean was already shaking his head.  “ _No_ , man, Cas has been drugged up and restrained for the last day and a half, we’re _not_ waiting anymore.”

Sam nodded immediatly, evidently agreeing.  “Ok then, I’m gonna go ask for this Mike guy.  Be right back.”

Dean assumed Sam had some kind of lawyer-brained plan that he didn’t have time to explain in the interest of getting this done as soon as possible so when his brother came back with Mike in tow, he sat back and assumed he was basically just supposed to keep his mouth shut and let Sam do the talking.  Which he was more than ok with because usually talking only made things worse for him.

“So, _Mike_ ,” Sam started with a hint of distaste, impatience and overall arrogance that was so spot on for the high priced lawyer he looked like that Dean nearly asked him to take a bow.  “We’re both busy people so let’s try and work towards efficiency here.  My client has been arrested without a warrant which means you’ll need to let him go in another twelve hours anyway unless you get Castiel to press charges.  Which you wont.  On top of that you had Castiel restrained, sedated and taken to hospital against his will on the grounds that he is mentally unstable, which means even if you _do_ get him to confess that my client assaulted him _or_ convince him to press charges, your foundation of evidence – all of which relies on the word of a man _you_ claim is insane – will be less than convincing.”

 Sam’s grin was absolutely predatory and he leaned forward to lace his fingers together on the table. 

“So, why don’t we skip the formalities and you release my client _now_ so that you don’t waste any more of your precinct's underfunded and thinly stretched resources, personnel and tax payer money following up on an arrest you had no grounds to make in the first place.”

Dean knew his eyebrows were hovering somewhere up near his hairline but it couldn’t be helped.  There were a lot of moments in his life where he remembered being proud of his little brother but, right now, this one shined above them all.

Sam would have made a truly terrifying lawyer.

“No grounds?”  Mike fairly growled.  He sat forward himself, matching Sam’s calm and confidence inch for inch, but the tell was in his eyes.  They glinted with something more personal than a cop’s run-of-the-mill distaste for a potential criminal; there was something deeper there.  “When we got to that motel –”

“I read the report and heard the first-hand account from my client.  Despite the, ah, obvious _embellishments_ in your report, you still have very little to support your decision.  I’m assuming you're grasping at probable cause and while we both know that’s enough to justify making a warrantless arrest, we also both know its not enough to justify keeping him here.”

Mike was growing progressively angrier, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he glared at Sam and Sam just continued to steamroller over him ruthlessly. 

“It’s obvious to anyone who knows what they’re looking for that this goes beyond civic duty and into something personal to _you_.  No one would put this much effort and resources in to such a flimsy case if they didn’t have some kind of personal vendetta.  I bet with very little digging I could find out _why_ you’re so obsessed with trying to make an accusation of domestic violence stick to an innocent man but I doubt either of us wants me to do that.”  Sam leaned back in his chair, one hand still on the table.  “After all, it might call in to question all your past arrests and investigations if word got out that your judgement was impaired by past trauma.”  Sam sniffed, looking wholly unconcerned at the prospect of ruining this man’s career.  “And, of course, all your _future_ movement within this precinct or any other precinct would be closely monitored after such information was brought to the attention of your superiors.  That is, if they allowed you any movement at all."

Sam offered the man a vapid smile, brown eyes glittering like a predator that had just cornered its prey.

Less than an hour later, the brothers were walking across the parking lot to the old Dodge Charger Sam had taken from the bunker’s garage and ,once Sam was behind the wheel, Dean was in the passenger seat and the doors were closed, Dean finally released a shaky breath, adrenaline still pumping through him even though that had been the most efficient and controlled escape they had ever made from a situation.

“Sam?”

“Hm?”  Sam was flicking through his ipod, trying to chose a song as if what he'd just done hadn't be the most epic verbal smack-down Dean had ever witnessed .

“Remind me never to piss you off.”

“You piss me off all the time.”

Dean punched his brother in the arm.  “You know what I mean!  That was…that was incredible, Sammy.  I just…” he sighed.  “Thank you.”

Sam smiled, punching him right back.  “I got you, man.  Now,” he tossed his ipod back on the dashboard as George Straight started playing through the tape deck converter, “Let’s go get our little brother.”

Dean grinned, shouting “Hell yeah!” as country twang blared through the old speakers.  He rolled down his window as Sam squealed the tires and flipped off the entire police station as the engine roared and sped them away.

Back on the road, Dean pulled out his phone - which he'd practically had to pry out of the cop's hand when he got his stuff back - to google all the hospitals in the city.  They didn’t know which one Cas was at, so they would just start with the closest one and work their way out.

As he set the phone in the dumb ass little holder Sam had stuck to the dash for navigation purposes, Dean couldn’t help singing along to the cheesy song under his breath.

“ _Brothers of the highway, children of the wind,_

 _Sailin’ for that settin’ sun, freedoms your best friend_.” 

He took a deep breath, trying to settle the clashing feeling of worry over what Cas was likely enduring at that very moment and relief at finally being able to go get him.  His hands shook even as they sped closer to the angel, thinking of how alone he must feel; how confused he must be with sedatives coursing through him.  Cas had only been drunk once in his life and he'd been a fully powered angel then.  Cas had never been under the influence of anything heavier than Tylenol or a couple beers.  Now, he was not only trying to navigate the likely terrifying situation of having his mind and body forcibly altered, but at the same time was reliving everything that had happened to him under Metatron’s hand.

Dean swallowed thickly, not entirely sure if he was more enraged and itching to kill someone or feeling so helplessly sad that he'd left Cas alone for so long already that he just wanted to cry.  He turned his face to look around the window, noticing that the sun was setting over the tops of the buildings downtown - remembered how Castiel's eyes had looked like gemstones in the same golden-pink light.

_Hang on, angel, I’m comin’._


	5. Chapter 5

As it turned out, Sam’s summarization of  _easy_  in reference to breaking someone out of a hospital only worked if said someone had not immediately been moved to the secure emergency psychiatric crisis unit for evaluation.

Which, of course, Castiel had been, because that’s just how their lives worked.

Sam – being the little planner that he was – had brought Dean’s fed suit with him knowing his brother would not be amenable to stopping at the motel to change.  So Dean squirmed around in the back seat of the Dodge, contorting himself out of his not so fresh smelling pajama bottoms and tshirt and in to a very official looking suit.  However, when they got to the second hospital and flashed their FBI badges the reception nurse was – unexpectedly – unimpressed.

“Look, your badges are super cool and everything,” the young man said, “But rules are rules and there’s paperwork involved in releasing an  _unevaluated_  psychiatric patient that was admitted  _against their will_  by an  _officer of the law_.”  The nurse bowed his head over a patient’s chart and started filling it out in elegant, sloping handwriting.  “Come back with that paperwork and you can walk him out in a tutu for all I care.”

Only Sam grabbing his arm and pulling him away stopped Dean from going over the counter.

“Dude,  _chill_.  Cas is here, we just need to figure out where _without_ being arrested for assaulting a nurse or causing a scene.  I’m good at pretending to be a lawyer but if you land yourself back in that interrogation room, we’re all fucked.”  He jabbed a finger in Dean’s chest.  “Keep your temper under control because Cas is the one that will suffer if you lose it.”

Dean felt himself deflate like a popped balloon and he let Sam drag him towards the hospital’s cafeteria.  He wanted to protest that they should be _looking for Cas_ , but it had been a while since he ate and he’d hardly slept in seventy-two hours and shitty hospital coffee sounded like a god send in that moment.  Besides, they needed to work out some kind of plan and Dean was losing steam fast.  Their usual ‘barge in with guns already firing’ wasn’t really going to work in a hospital.  The very thought of the task before them and the careful plan it needed was enough to make Dean’s head feel too heavy to hold up.  In that moment, he was sure if he tried hard enough he would be able to feel whole sections of his brain going offline.

He was so god damn tired.

The cafeteria was packed, given that it was whatever time of day and whatever day of the week it was – Dean had no idea – and he had to nab a tiny table with two chairs the second he saw two nurses vacate it, practically hissing like an angry cat when an exhausted looking doctor stumbled too close.

She didn’t look bothered by his hostility and dropped a thick pad of paper on to the tiny table, making Dean snatch his arms back to avoid getting hit with it.

“Listen, buddy,” she muttered tiredly.  “I need a flat surface for two minutes and you’ve got the only one without food trays on it.”

Dean scowled.  “Alright fine.”

Sam was in line anyway and there was still a ton of people in front of him.

“Thank you,” she sighed, sitting down like he’d just put a velvet pillow on the chair.  “Sorry, I’m just so damn tired and I have so much paperwork to do and…anyway.”  She shook her head, pulled a pen from the pocket of her lab coat and bent over the pad of paper, scribbling furiously.

Dean allowed himself a moment to be thoroughly displeased with the situation before he lets his eyes wander from the glasses perched on the end of her nose to her red hair – shot with grey – falling out of the tight bun she’d put it in hours and hours ago, then down to her name tag.

 _Angie_.  Under her name was a small, square pin with a glittery frog sticker and a small block of text.  He had to wait until she shifted, reaching up to push her glasses back up her nose, to be able to read it.

_Keep talking, I’m diagnosing you._

“Keep talking, I’m diagnosing you?” he read out loud, mustering up a little huff of laughter.  “What does that mean?”  His heart had already sped up.  He knew what that meant.  Who else but a psychiatrist would have a pin like that?

She looked up with a little smile, going right back to her paper work.  “It means I have a terrible sense of humor and an inflated ego.”

“So you’re a shrink?” he asked, using just the perfect amount of scepticism and respect.

It got her attention and she looked up from her papers again, pen hovering in the air.

“A shrink?  Hm.  I haven’t heard that term since the 90’s.”  Her keen brown eyes snapped this way and that behind her glasses, and Dean got the impression he was being read like a book.

She slipped the glasses off her face and sat back in the chair with an absent smile. Apparently the paper work wasn’t all  _that_  urgent.

Dean flashed her his most charming smile, his stomach flipping when her own widened in response.  He hoped he was right about this.  Quickly, he scrambled for the next thing to say but she beat him to it.

“So, what is a thirty something year old FBI agent – who looks like he hasn’t slept in days and has the attitude of a starving badger – doing taking up a table in the cafeteria of the biggest hospital in Seattle?”

Dean blinked, thrown off by such blunt words coming from behind such a flirtatious smile.

“Uh, a buddy of mine was admitted here against his will and he’s…got issues.  I was trying to see if I could talk to him.  Maybe let him know he’s in good hands so he’s not so scared, you know?”

He let the truth of it pull legitimate frustration and worry into his expression and had to make sure he didn’t seem too eager when her smile slipped away and her brow furrowed.

“But?” she prompted.

He bowed his head and ran a hand through his hair, scrubbing it down his face.  “But they won’t let me see him.  Won’t even tell me where he is.  Just that he’s being held for evaluation and that I need paperwork to even talk to him.”

Behind her, Sam was walking over with a tray in his hands, but the second he saw the doctor he froze and then promptly veered off to the other side of the cafeteria where his suit wouldn’t tip off the doctor that he wasn’t here alone just to see his  _buddy_.

“I came right here after I finished up a local case so I thought I’d just grab something to eat before I head home.”  He rested his chin in his hand and stared around the cafeteria – the absolute picture of grim acceptance.

“What’s your name?” she softly asked, pen twirling between her fingers.

“Dean.”

“Well, Dean, let me see what I can find out.”  She stood, papers pinned under her arm.  “What is your friend’s name?”

Dean surged to his feet, not having to fake any of the relief and gratitude he was feeling.  “That would be awesome – thank you.  His name is Castiel.”

She laughed.  “An unusual name.  But patients are admitted under their last name, what is his?”

Dean’s brain screeched to a half and nothing came out of his open mouth.  What would Cas have used for a last name?  Not Winchester, none of them were allowed to use that in the event they ended up in hospital and they’d been over that with Cas.  Would he had given any name at all?  It was entirely possible he wasn’t aware enough to do so.  It didn’t matter, as Dean’s _buddy_ , Dean would be expected to know it and Angie was looking at him expectantly.

“It’s, uh – it’s –”

“ _Code white in stabilization unit.  Doctor Owen please report to fourth floor.  Code white – Doctor Owen to fourth floor_.”

“Shit,” Angie said, suddenly frantic again, “Stay here.  I might be a while but I _will_ check on your friend and let you know what I find out.”

Dean breathed a sigh of relief as she ran off, lab coat billowing out behind her.  He hadn’t even caught his breath before Sam was at his elbow, asking what had happened. 

“She’s a psychiatrist, I’m pretty sure.  I told her what was going on – not the whole story, obviously – and she said she’d check up on Cas and get back to us.  But I’m guessing we’ve got some time to kill if that page for her was anything to go by.”

Sam sighed, setting the tray of gross looking sandwhiches down on the table.  “Well, that’s probably for the best.  You need to eat something and we should probably head to the psych ward waiting room, then you can catch some sleep too.  Even if it’s just a few minutes.”

A few minutes turned in to a few hours and Dean was woken by someone shaking his leg.

He sat bolt upright on the uncomfortable row of seats he was laying across, that slightly queasy feeling in his gut telling him he was still a long ways off from being fully rested, and he swallowed around the dryness in his mouth. 

He felt like absolute shit.

“Dean?”

Quickly, he stumbled to his feet in front of Doctor Owen, rubbing at his eye with one hand while he tried to will his brain into booting up faster than he knew it could.

It was well into the night and the waiting room was dark, one of the fluorescent lights in the corner of the ceiling burnt out and the windows all black.  It had just been Sam and Dean there for the last two hours, save for the occasional nurse that would shuffle by.

“Hey, you find anything?” he asked the doctor, his voice hoarse.

Angie’s eyes darted up to Sam and Dean quickly fumbled his way through an explanation.

“Sam.  Partner.  Drove me.”  He wondered if banging his head against the wall might jumpstart his brain.

“He hasn’t slept in a few days,” Sam helpfully added.

She nodded and turned her attention back to Dean, her expression serious in a way that reminded Dean of television doctors breaking bad news to a patient’s family. 

His stomach sank like a stone.

“I found your friend,” she told him steadily.  “He was the code white.”

 

* * *

 

“Violent behaviour?”  Dean parroted, feeling appalled.  “Cas wouldn’t hurt a fly.  In fact, I literally witnessed him befriend a hive of bees just so he could gather some of their honey!”

Sam winced beside him and Dean belated realized that probably wasn’t the best thing to say to the woman in charge of deciding if Cas was mentally stable enough to leave the hospital.  On top of that, he remembered that when Cas _had_ been a little obsessed with bees, he’d been certifiably off his rocker.

“Dean,” her voice held the long practiced gentle patience of a doctor talking to emotionally compromised family members.  “I need you to listen to me very carefully.  Castiel became violent –”

“Then he must have had good reason –”

“ _Dean_ ,” she said firmly.  “Your friend is very ill.  He needs help.  Right now he is suffering from psychosis and has lost touch with reality.  He had become a danger to himself, do you understand?”

Sam spoke before Dean could start yelling.  “Dean, take a walk.”

With nothing else to do with the dark feeling swelling in his gut, Dean did as he was told, stalking off in whatever direction he happened to be facing, trying his best to calm down.

 _For Cas_ , he told himself.  He needed to stay calm for Cas because they only had one shot at this and if he fucked it up, they would never let him step foot through the front door a second time. 

But he was getting fed up with all the waiting and the paperwork and the playing by the rules.  His patience was evaporating and he was only a few Dean-stay-calm’s away from driving the Impala through the front door and shooting anyone who got in the way of him saving his angel.

He took a deep breath, trying to picture Cas’ calm face.  Cas was always so even under pressure, nothing seemed to rattle the guy – nothing except cops bullying him into near flashbacks of torture. 

Grinding his teeth, Dean turned on his heel and stomped back the way he’d come.

By the time he got back to where Sam and Doctor Owen were sitting in the waiting room, he had actually managed to calm down some – even if it was only because he’d compromised with himself.  If he wasn’t allowed to at least  _speak_  to Cas in the next hour, then he would go back to the motel, get his favourite gun, and tear the hospital apart until he found the angel.

It seemed as if the doctor and Sam were only waiting for him to get back because they both stood and Angie told them to follow her.  They were led down long hallways and up a few floors in an elevator and then down another long hallway.  There were empty beds everywhere, lining the hall and stuffed in storage rooms.  Some were made up and waiting and others were occupied by slumbering patients. 

It was unnerving to realize that most of the patients they walked by weren’t asleep.  Some of them were staring blankly up at the ceiling, obviously having fallen quite far down their personal rabbit hole.  Others were sitting up, staring at them as they walked by.  One woman had restraints around her wrists and was crying softly.  Occasionally, a run down looking nurse would shuffle by with dark circles around their overtired eyes.

All in all, it was a dim and sad place, efficiency having edged out any kind of warmth long ago.  It was a harsh reminded that there were things just as dark and dangerous to fight outside of demons and vampires.  In some ways, the kinds of battles some of these people were fighting in their heads were considerably more difficult.

Dean didn’t envy them; he’d take a wendigo any day of the week over something intangible in his head that he couldn’t ram a knife through.  Not that that wasn’t something all three of them hadn’t had to wrestle with at one time or another.  Castiel still was and, despite this place being made to help people struggling with the kind of mental demons Castiel had, Dean knew there was no shrink on earth that would listen to Cas talk and not try and throw him in a padded room.

Sadly, that left the angel with only two men who were fairly damaged themselves.  Though Dean thought they were managing quite well, given how the odds had been stacked against them.

More like piled on top of them, he thought ruefully.

But no.  They were doing ok.  He thought they were doing ok.  Last forty-eight hours aside.

When Doctor Owen came to a stop they were outside one of many heavy metal doors with a small glass window.

 _Room 272_.

Dean swallowed, steeling himself.  It didn’t help when Angie turned to him with her hand on the door knob, pulling a key from her pocket. 

“Only one of you at a time.  If he becomes violent, you need to leave immediately.  Do not try and talk to him or subdue him – just get out.  Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Dean.”  She turned to him fully, pointedly looking at Sam as well.  “Castiel has already exhibited increased strength with the constant flow of adrenaline triggered by his psychosis.  He overpowered several orderlies and had to be given twice the amount of sedative most patients need.  In his current state, he may not recognize you.  If he becomes violent,  _get out immediately_.”

He made an effort to look sincere.  “Ok, I understand.”  _Increased strength, my ass_ , he thought.  Cas was always that strong.  Because he was a fallen fucking angel, not a human that responded to anything like these doctors were used to.

_Let me fucking see him already._

_He had to take another deep breath and Sam nudged his arm supportively._

She carefully opened the door and peeked inside before stepping back. 

“Gently, Dean.  Be soft.  Be quiet,” she reminded him.

He nodded, the only bit of advice he intended to take, and stepped through the door.  It was pulled closed behind him but he didn’t even notice.

Castiel was huddled in the far corner of the empty room.  He was still barefoot, wearing his pajama bottoms and without a shirt and Dean hoped it was only because they decided to leave it off to look at his shoulder and not because Cas was fighting them so hard they couldn’t even get a shirt on him.  Luckily the room was warm, but that did nothing to change the fact that the bare floor and walls made Castiel look small and fragile.  He looked like he should be cold.

Cas had his knees drawn loosely to his chest, his arms folded against his stomach and his head resting against the wall with his eyes closed.  The bruise on the side of his face was a violent purple now and his bad shoulder was against the wall, hidden from Dean’s view.

“Cas?” he nearly whispered, taking a few steps closer and crouching down, heart managing to squeeze and pound at the same time.

Castiel didn’t move at all.  He reached out to touch the angel’s shoulder but paused when his eyes did a preliminary pass over the unconscious form.  The skin around Cas’ wrists was red and raw looking and a sudden burst of anger exploded quietly behind Dean’s ribs.

After all the work Cas had done battling the trauma of being held down and violated by the scribe of God here he was being held down and injected with drugs against his will by people who had  _no fucking clue_  who and what was on their stretcher.

 _Stay calm_ , he reminded himself.   _Stay calm for Cas_.

He let his fingers barely brush Cas’ shoulder, remembering what Cas had been like after Metatron, remembering how even the slightest touch made him flinch.  But it seemed Cas was too far under the layers and layers of sedatives because all he did was shift sluggishly, his brow pinching.

Encouraged, Dean shuffled closer.  “Cas, hey, buddy, wake up.”

He had to call his name a few more times before Castiel’s eyes finally opened.  Even then, they kept slipping closed and Castiel turned his face into the wall with a soft groan, wrapping his arm tighter around himself and pulling his knees closer to his chest.

“Cas, come on, man.”

Finally, Castiel eyes opened and stayed open, but when they wandered over to Dean his pupils were blown wide, black eating up all but a thin ring of blue around the edges. 

He was stoned out of his mind.

“Oh, Jesus,” Dean breathed sadly, “Oh, Cas...”  Carefully, he sat down with his side pressed against Cas’, taking one of the angel’s hands and squeezing it tight.  “Fuck, Cas, I’m so sorry.”

“Dean?”  Castiel mumbled with groggy confusion, unsure even as he leaned in to him if Dean was actually real.

“Yeah, buddy, it’s me.”

Cas’s head fell on to his shoulder as dead-weight and he turned his whole body in to Dean, wrapping his arm around Dean’s and pressing his face to the side of his neck.  He breathed out, long and slow.

“My shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Dean huffed a laugh with no mirth in it.  “That’s ‘cause you’re high as a kite.”

“Feels’like I have my wings again,” Castiel slurred against his neck.

Dean squeezed his eyes shut, letting his head hit the wall behind him so he could blame the prickling in his eyes on the pain. 

“Kept trying to fly away…tied me down.”

Deam had to wait until he was sure his voice wouldn’t shake, rubbing slowly up and down Cas’ arm, before he said.  “Well I’m here now.  And I’m gonna get you out of here, ok?”

The feeling of Cas face contorting with despair against his neck was more gut-wrenching than actually seeing it.  When he felt hot tears slip silently down his skin his throat tightened ominously. 

 _Stay calm…stay calm for Cas_.

“They tied me down, I couldn’t get away.  I tried – I asked them to let me go but they just tied me down, Dean,  _they tied me down_  –”

“Shh, it’s ok, Cas, it’s ok.  I’m here now and I won’t let them tie you down again, angel, I promise.”  He turned his body in to Cas, gingerly wrapped his arms around his bare shoulders.  Instead of flinching away like he expected, Castiel curled in to him, grabbing at his suit to pull him closer, face still buried against Dean’s neck.

“Ok, it’s ok,” Dean told him cradling the back of Cas’ head.  He thanked god for small miracles and told himself to at least be grateful that Cas’ shoulder wasn’t causing him pain at the moment.

That massive, trembling force was rising up in Dean’s chest again.  The one that made him want to burn this place to the ground.  The one that wanted to wrap Cas in his arms and snarl at anyone that got too close, but Dean wrestled it in to submission because, in this, he had to stay logical.  He had to not let his rage and protectiveness run the show or it would only end up hurting them all more.

After a few moments, when he had composed himself enough to not cause Cas further distress, Dean gently pulled back enough to cup Castiel’s face in his hands, waiting until Cas’ dazed, red rimmed eyes focused on his face as much as they could.

“Ok, listen, buddy.  We’re gonna bust you out of here tonight whether its legal or not, ok?  But you gotta do something for me.  If they come in here again before I come back, you have to stop fighting them.  You don’t have to answer their questions but you  _have_  to stop fighting them.  Can you promise me that?”

Castiel’s eyes focused minutely and his eyebrows twitched like he wanted to frown.  “But what if they try to hurt me – what if they hold me down again?”

Dean was already shaking his head, thumb brushing absently over the bruise on Cas’ cheek.  “They won’t, Cas.  They wont hurt you and they wont try and hold you down as long as you don’t fight them.  I  _promise_.  They won’t hurt you.”

He stood while he still had the power to do so and backed away while Cas blinked up at him with wide and confused eyes, swaying into the space Dean had vacated.

“Where…where are you going?”  He sounded as distressed as the drugs would allow, his hand still hovering in the air and fingers still curled in a suit jacket that was no longer in front of him.

“I just have to talk to the doctor, Cas, I’ll be right back.”

Without the support of Dean’s presence beside him, Castiel leaned back against the wall. 

“Can’t I go with you?” 

Dean nearly bit through his lip to stop it from trembling.

Cas’ voice was small and meek, as if he already knew Dean was going to leave him behind and, as soon as Dean was out of the room, he was going to need to find a garbage can retch in to.  His stomach was already heaving, his breath shallow and fast as he backed away to the door.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he lied, “I’ll be right back and then we can leave  _together_ , ok?”

“They’re going to tie me down again…” 

It was obvious from the way Castiel was staring right through him now that his mind had wandered far off the beaten path again, but that didn’t make leaving any easier.  Dean said nothing this time, knowing that a conversation like this with a drugged mind would just go round and round forever.  So he left, let the door click shut behind him and didn’t bother trying to arrange his face into something that wouldn’t worry Sam because his brother had seen it already.

Sam’s face paled and he swallowed, saying nothing.  Knowing better.

Once the vice around his throat eased, Dean looked up at Doctor Owen, who looked grave and sympathetic – everything a doctor should be in this situation.  He took a step into her personal space and she leaned away, her eyes flicking over his face uncertainly, reading the level of threat in his expression.

“No one ties him down again, you understand?” he quietly threatened.  “No one even  _talks_  about putting restraints on him.”

She looked torn, hesitating as she weighed the benefit of just agreeing with him against explaining why such a promise wasn’t possible.

“Dean, if he becomes violent again –”

“You’ve got him doped up with enough drugs to take down a horse, he can barely hold his head up for fuck’s sake!”

“Keep your voice down!”  Owen scolded him with no lack of anger rearing in her own eyes.

Sam grabbed his arm with a soft, “Dean…”

He yanked his arm free.  “What forms do I need to get him out of here?”

Doctor Owen sputtered, looking incredulous.  “Are you kidding?”

Whatever happened on Dean’s face then made her take a step back and she swallowed, holding her clipboard in front of her like a shield. 

“While the right paperwork would give the legal right to discharge this patient in to your custody I must insist that in my  _professional and objective_  opinion –”

“ _What.  Forms_.”  Dean ground out.

Lips pursed unhappily and brown eyes darting to where Sam was standing silently behind Dean, Owen finally pulled the pen from her pocket and scribbled something on her clipboard, ripping the paper off and handing it to Dean.  He looked at the short list of official legal form names, shoved it in his breast pocket and left without another word to Doctor Owen.

Behind him, Sam followed closely, silent and tense.

The elevator doors had closed before either of them spoke.

Sam quietly asked, more for confirmation that they were on the same page than anything else, “We’re not going to get those forms, are we?”

“Nope.”

Dean was done waiting.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like it? Any fave lines or spots? Lemme know! :D

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave some feedback :)


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